Remember on election night when I warned that the Republicans in Washington would still not get the message? Well, we've had a series of intra-party elections and, even though it hasn't been as fun to watch as Pelosi's gaffe, the results are telling.
In the House we have little change. Speaker Hastert is gone, but he never really led his party in the traditional sense. Boehner retains his leadership position as does Blunt. Boehner gets a bit of a pass since he has only held his position for less than a year. However, it should be noted that under his leadership and with the electorate closing in, Republicans did little more than pass some lip-service legislation. That no one could be found to replace Blunt (who is not on best terms with Boehner to begin with) does not fill me with a sense of hope.
In the Senate we managed to do even worse. After losing two of our top three members the GOP decided to do a retread and make Trent Lott the #2 man. Granted his ousting in 2002 for saying nice things about an old man was unfortunate, but he should have known better than to endorse a campaign whose central platform was segragation. His gaffe and ressurection are two sides of the same problem, the Republicans see the Senate as a place where everyone should be chummy instead of a serious body of legislation. The Democrats understand the significance of the chamber and that's why they were so dominate last term despite a ten vote deficit.
Change for the sake of change is not always the best policy. It should also be noted that these are mostly fine men. I have hopes that Sen. McConnell will be a strong leader in the Senate. Few are as good as Rep. Boehner on the subject of earmarks. Even Sen. Lott is likely to apply principles over loyalty to the White House thanks to his experiences four years ago. However, we did just lose and there are many lessons we should be learning from our past mistakes. As expected, those already in Washington will be the last to take these lessons to heart. This is nothing new.
Because of this stagnation, running against the powers in Washington, including the GOP in Congress, will be one of the central fronts of the 2008 primaries in these early stages. As of right now Newt Gingrich is gaining the most from this. As long as the rallying cry amongst the base is the desire to recapture the spirit of '94, he will be in his element, making him a more formitable foe on the right wing of the party than we was just a few weeks ago.
Gov. Romney will need to hone his message as to why he's the best person to renew the GOP. With his success in balancing the budget in Mass. he already has a solid jumping off point.
~~~Thomas