Tonight was a bad night for the GOP. The worst night that many of the younger Republicans have ever seen. What two years ago looked to be a permanent realignment has ended in the loss of the House, several governors, and with the Senate on the very edge of flipping. There will be a handful of snap judgments made over the next few days as to what happened. As a group, let us look at what went wrong, where we stand, and, most importantly, how we should approach the future.
History will record that it was a combination of an expected sixth-year-itch and dissatisfaction with the Iraq War. It would be silly to minimize the shadow Iraq casts over these elections and ungrateful not to acknowledge the devastating consequences it's brought to thousands of families. However, no matter how permanent it may sometimes seem, our dealings with Iraq itself represents a temporary military engagement. Whether we leave a bloody failed state, or a stabilized democracy, our time there has a limit. Therefore, it would be helpful to acknowledge the political detriment of Iraq, but to set it partially aside for now and start to look at failings within the GOP that fall more cleanly within the core of the party.
Why We Vote
The first and most important of the core reasons for the defeat is that the GOP forgot its strength. The Democrats have been yelling for years that Republicans win elections by demonizing their opponents and scaring the electorate. To a certain degree this is true, we are not above using negative advertisements to define our opponents and contrast the choice of an election. In fact President Bush's late entrance into seriously negative campaigning (September 28) came much too late to help. For full effectiveness Sen. Reid's "We killed the Patriot Act" should have been a sound bite on the level of "I voted for it before I voted against it".
However, negative campaigning does not account for why Republicans have enjoyed a governing majority for the past decade. The true secret to our success has been a happy and enthusiastic voter base that wants to see the values and positions of the GOP prevail.
This election we were barely asked to vote for Republicans, the only request we received from the GOP was that we vote against the Democrats. It was a mistake. For years Democrats have practiced voting against Republicans and have nursed a growing anger with each passing election cycle. When it comes to matching the Democrats on ideas we can win easily. Democrats have had few new ideas in decades and those ideas that they do put forward are usually rejected by the voters. When it comes to matching Democrats in a battle of unthinking hatred of the other side there is a sizeable gap. Let us hope that the gap is never closed as relying exclusively on anger is ultimately self-destructive for a party. Despite the Democrats gains tonight, they remain a crippled party incapable of doing more than making temporary gains as their enemies falter.
Make no mistake that there is nothing wrong with voting against Democrats, with every move they've proven just how unserious they are in a serious time. However, we came to power as a party that meant something. It is the positive party that attracts brilliant young minds and fosters growth.
What the Results Don't Mean
Conventional wisdom and wishful thinking from liberal commentators will likely conspire to confuse what tonight’s results really mean. The first, and most incorrect, assertion they will make is that this means the country has repudiated conservative values and wishes the Republican Party to embrace its moderates. This, of course, is false. Tonight’s results would be more accurately described as the end result of disillusionment amongst the conservative base itself.
The most glaring example of ignoring the conservative base comes in the form of immigration. Well over two-thirds of the country believes in strong borders. This single issue could easily have minimized Democratic gains by rallying conservative, moderates, and independents to the polls. As wedge issues go, they don't come any more golden than this. Even if Democrats managed to stall true reform in the Senate, how many of our losses tonight could have been avoided merely pointing to the opponent and stating that they favor open borders? Sadly, President Bush and a depressing number of Republican Senators (led by Sen. McCain) chose to lead the party to an immigration plan that remarkably is more concerned with filling a quota of an exploitable underclass than following the rule of law. Key to this strategy was the belief that our Hispanic citizens are so unsophisticated that they would hold border enforcement against the GOP. This act of naked pandering was politically tone-deaf. It opened the GOP to the worst of all worlds on the issue. Not only did it de-energize the base, but it also gave the megaphone to the most obnoxious of the strong borders crowd. This did more to scare the susceptible Hispanics into the Democrat camp than any serious-minded reform would have.
There is one more critical element about border control that must be mentioned: If Republicans had maintained control of the House it is doubtful that any major legislation would have passed. With Democrats in control, however, the president will likely get everything he wants on immigration. Those that believed they were voting for gridlock were mistaken.
Beyond immigration, there is litany of reasons for discontent. Two years of large majorities in both houses of Congress and the presidency have yielded almost nothing in the way of gains for the conservative movement. The reforming of entitlement programs has gone backwards. The unconstitutional use of the filibuster as a veto for any judges Democrats judge too conservative (usually by means of smearing the nominee as a racist) was allowed to stand and, thanks to tonight, will entitle Democrats to only allow sub-par nominees to become judges. We did get Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito placed on the Supreme Court, for which we should be thankful. However, it took a revolt by the Republican base to get the unfortunate nomination of Harriet Miers withdrawn. One wonders how the noble filibuster was never considered in that case. Even the most basic tenant of good conservative governance, fiscal restraint, could not be taken seriously enough to curtail the earmarking that makes pork spending so easy.
Beyond the legislative failures have been ones of simple poor governance. Iraq and Katrina have resulted in a crisis of simple competence. Despite many of the scandals we've seen over the past two years being figments of the Democrats' imaginations (Plame/Wilson, Delay, everyone in the Foley scandal not named Foley) there is also the fact that we have not been diligent enough in stamping out our own fires.
Had the base remained happy, Republicans would have surely lost seats, but it would not have been as bad as it was tonight.
On the conservative side of things, there will be our own brand of wishful thinking. “Perhaps,” we might say, “this shock will be a good thing for the Republican Party in the long run”. Let us dispense with such notions immediately. This is not a good thing. The members of Congress saw this happening from several miles away and did remarkably little to avoid their fate. As much as we would like to think otherwise, losing will not suddenly cause Republicans too comfy in their seats in Congress and married to the notion that the key to being reelected is to rob the national treasury to suddenly change their ways. If change is to happen, it will be from outside of Washington.
What Now President Bush?
Deep breath. That effectively takes us through what went wrong. What do we have for the present? As far as President Bush is concerned, not much. Even before tonight's defeat, he looked to be very much a lame duck president. For a president who started with such an ambitious second term agenda, this is unfortunate. As many mistakes as President Bush has made, and as responsible as he is for tonight’s debacle, he is, at heart, a genuinely good man who had greatness as a president within his grasp. President Bush's one and only job is now the commander-in-chief. Aside from his unfortunate penchant for ineffective border control and the always-present possibility of a Supreme Court nomination opening up, it is exceedingly unlikely that he will accomplish anything domestically. His presidency will end in the way it has been run since September 12, 2001, focused strongly on foreign policy.
President Bush will have two years to straighten out Iraq. The choices we face in dealing with that country are, for the moment, rather grim. Pulling out will only cause a bloodbath within the country that will make the last three years seem like a cakewalk. Continuing at our current pace is starting to closely resemble the definition of insanity. If it hasn't worked yet, it's unlikely to start working next year. Doubling down and increasing our troop levels is probably the soundest military position, but does the American public have the stomach to add another 50,000-100,000 troops? Yes, we're in a tough position. We never did find Iraq's George Washington, Theodor Heuss, or even its Hamid Karzai for that matter. If there is a way to stabilize Iraq, it had better be started soon for if Iraq is still a failed state come Election Day 2008, the question of whether to leave Iraq will have already been decided no matter which party controls the White House.
We will continue to hope for President Bush's success. Not only for the sake of our political future, but because we realize that real lives hinge on his successes and failures.
The Rest of Us? Back to Basics
We have some work to do. We do have some advantages as we begin putting the pieces back together.
First, we already understand that our loss is the result of our own party's mistakes. This means that we are already prepared to roll up our sleeves and start fixing the problem. As noted earlier, we won't get much help from our friends in Washington. It's also about time we stopped expecting their help. We are not the party of insider Washington. You stand around breathing the fumes of the beltway long enough and invariably your thinking goes wonky. You can count on one hand the number of Senators who have served for more than two terms without becoming hopelessly institutionalized. If the party is to prosper, it's our job to give it new life.
Second, the concept of big government conservatism has finally run its course. No matter what the demographic driven pollsters believe, Republican pandering never works. Democrats will always turn around and say that they're willing to go higher and accuse us of selling out to some sector of the economy that they will label as "Big _". Take a look at how Democrats have turned the Prescription Drug Benefit against us and you will understand how this works. If a policy makes sense, then by all mean we should follow it. However, we should never count on getting credit for it in the morning.
Third, we remain fortunate in our adversaries. The names of Dean, Kerry, Gore, Kennedy, and Pelosi are out there ready to provide ample sound bites at a moment's notice. The Democrats are likely to name the very weak Sen. Clinton as their presidential candidate in 2008. Aside from complaining about Iraq, Democrats remained virtually silent in this campaign season on any serious policy issues. The ability to remain mute will disappear in a presidential election year. Particularly one in which President Bush will no longer be the head of the GOP.
Forth, with the election finally over, we'll begin to realize that we simply became too smart for ourselves. The policy positions of our candidates in this evening's election were, dare we say it, nuanced. With a few exceptions the commercials became a micro-targeted mess of soulless messages, usually about a rather minor flaw of the Democrat candidate. Either we need to become comfortable with our positions again and shout them from the rooftops, or we need to change them. Vigorously defending our beliefs is the only way to see that they become accepted by the mainstream of the country. Hiding your beliefs only makes your values look shady.
Finally, we still make up the majority of the country. Every time we run on conservative values, we win. There is work to do, but the red states still outnumber the blue states meaning that we are easily underperforming our potential in the Senate. One good election sweeping away the opportunistic Democrat freshmen in the House and we're knocking on the door of the majority of the House again.
And Romney
Gov. Mitt Romney remains our trump card. Now more than ever he also represents the best chance for the Republican Party to regain its footing in the near future. No other Republican candidate embodies the qualities of fiscal discipline, innovative problem solving, sunny personality, core values, the aura of competence, and the personal integrity that Gov. Romney possesses. Those of us that have contributed to this site have long since seen him as the future of the Republican Party and the best man to lead us into the future. The only thing we need do is expose him to enough of our Republican friends and it will become self-evident to the country in time.
Two years is a long time in politics. Look at where we were on election night in 2004 and look at where we are today. We don't know what twists and turns we'll see between now and then, but the future is always bright in America for those with the courage to optimistically look forward to the new day.
~~~Thomas