The Republicans Got What They Deserved...And So Did We.
Last week, the Republicans received the whipping that had been forecast and in many cases assisted by the antique media and its punditry. In many ways, it was a whipping of their own making. Historically, of course, it was to be expected and it would have taken a far different Congress to buck the trends of history.
However, even though the Republicans lost control of Congress, we got exactly the comeuppance we deserved by the Democrats taking control. It is widely acknowledged by those who don't have a donkey emblem and portrait of Mao tatto'ed on their rear that the Republicans biggest losses came from scandal and big-government spending. Exit polls showed that many voters actually saw the Democrats as the party of fiscal responsibility and smaller government as well as the less corrupt of the two arms. Yay for the rest of us.
How did a party that has defined itself since the Reagan Revolution as the party of limited government, fiscal responsibility and usually the more ethical choice fall so far? Again, you will hear a myriad of reasons.
The ones you should ignore are any stating that the voters felt the Democrat message was better, because the Democrats purposefully didn't have one. Well, they did, just not one they were willing to crow about too loudly. How many votes do you think the Democratic challengers would have gotten if people fully realized that their Party wanted to abolish all the tax cuts of the last five years, raise additional taxes on everyone (especially the Middle Class they pretend to adore), adopt a defeatist and appeasement-based foreign policy, treat our enemies as mere "criminal problems" to be dealt with by a politically correct law enforcement apparatus that spends more time looking at Americans than foreign terrorists (if you don't believe me, simply review the FBI, IRS, and BATF actions under the Clinton administration) and pour more money into failed socialist programs designed to further eradicate the individual and herald the growth of the State.
Think that'd get a lot of votes outside New York, Massachusetts or California? I'm guessing it'd be on the shy side of accepted.
Now, back to the wherefore's and the why's. Consider that in the '94 Republican sweep of Congress, those who came in as freshmen were in no way capable of influencing policy. Those spots were reserved for the new Chairmen, because that sort of thing is seniority-based. All the '94 revolution did was ascend to the Chairmanships Ford and Rockefeller-style '70's Republicans who tended to be of the liberal country-club variety and more in agreement regarding policy with their Democrat brethren than the new Turks. To this day, I think perhaps one Congressman from that wave ascended to a Chairmanship. Their "Contract with America", while a good start, never stood a real chance against Congressional bureaucracy.
Also, all Congressmen regardless of party affiliation tend to become "institutionalized" after a few years in Washington. With some exceptions, the bulk tend to identify more with their Washington brethren than those in their home districts. It's the old "1 tyrant 1000 miles away or 1000 tyrants 1 mile away" motif. You trade a absolute monarch for an elected oligarchy that generally (again with exceptions) loses touch with the voters and values that got them elected. This argument works best on moderate to conservative members of Congress. Liberals are in their natural habitat as Washington since the New Deal has been decidedly Leftist in its bent and bureaucracy, perhaps even before that.
Combining abandoment of your principles, what got you elected in the first place with a decided lack of ability to really change direction of the Congressional Titanic made for a combination few seemed willing to acknowledge until now. Conservatives and libertarian types were doomed from the start. The big government machine has proven, for this round at least, to have better staying power.
And although we did throw much of the baggage out, it was mostly Republican baggage. The most corrupt of the Democrats, from ABSCAM Murtha to Freezer Cash Jefferson are not only still in Congress, many of them are jockeying for leadership positions.
This more than anything makes Pelosi's claim that she will bring ethics and integrity back to Congress make me want to vomit Day-Glo. Sorry for the visual. It's about the only way I can truly capture my disgust with her hypocrisy. And yes, a woman who's probably one of the richest if not the richest PERSON in Congress who professes to be for the working man and Union labor (and who won the 2003 Chavez award from the fruit workers union) while using only non-union labor in her $25 million Napa vineyard, 30+ restaurants and hotel (most of which is likely illegal immigrants) should have her picture in the dictionary next to the word. To spell it out for those who haven't been beaten enough over the head with it yet, she DEFINES hypocrisy.
Now, going back to us getting what we deserved, that the liberal Democrats control Congress is entirely our fault. We didn't demand better acountability from the Republicans and we didn't support the alternatives like Libertarians enough to make a dent. We tolerated their corruption and the money and the scandals enough that these guys stayed in office long enough that we'd have no choice but to toss them out on their ear. Notice, of course, again that corrupt Republicans were sent packing by their constituency, not the myriad of corrupt Democrats. Just a reminder. What's that say about those Democrat constituencies?
And because we didn't weed out these corrupt schmucks in the Primaries and the Left doesn't mind corruption if it gets them power, we got exactly what we deserved. The interesting thing will be to see if anyone of us learns from this and either reforms the Republicans into a leaner and more conservative party or uplifts and supports the more conservative Midwestern Libertarians.
Your alternative is to have a Left-leaning Congress with perhaps a Left-leaning president who sees your freedom and individual liberty as an impediment to their agenda. Sure, you'll be able to marry if you're gay and you'll still live off the government teet if you're a welfare bum, but you'll be as free as a caged lab rat. It's not like you'll have to conform to government rules of behavior or do what they tell you if you take the stolen tax money they offer you(oh wait, that already happens) or have to fork over billions for fraudulent research (embryonic stem cells) or bogus junk science (man-induced global warming), surely. Is it? And for those of you working, surely another 10% or 20% increase in your payroll tax is something you can tolerate "for the public good", right?
Or...we can all get our acts together and go about fixing the mistakes we allowed to happen on our watch from our chosen representatives. Time to roll up the sleeves.
Last week, the Republicans received the whipping that had been forecast and in many cases assisted by the antique media and its punditry. In many ways, it was a whipping of their own making. Historically, of course, it was to be expected and it would have taken a far different Congress to buck the trends of history.
However, even though the Republicans lost control of Congress, we got exactly the comeuppance we deserved by the Democrats taking control. It is widely acknowledged by those who don't have a donkey emblem and portrait of Mao tatto'ed on their rear that the Republicans biggest losses came from scandal and big-government spending. Exit polls showed that many voters actually saw the Democrats as the party of fiscal responsibility and smaller government as well as the less corrupt of the two arms. Yay for the rest of us.
How did a party that has defined itself since the Reagan Revolution as the party of limited government, fiscal responsibility and usually the more ethical choice fall so far? Again, you will hear a myriad of reasons.
The ones you should ignore are any stating that the voters felt the Democrat message was better, because the Democrats purposefully didn't have one. Well, they did, just not one they were willing to crow about too loudly. How many votes do you think the Democratic challengers would have gotten if people fully realized that their Party wanted to abolish all the tax cuts of the last five years, raise additional taxes on everyone (especially the Middle Class they pretend to adore), adopt a defeatist and appeasement-based foreign policy, treat our enemies as mere "criminal problems" to be dealt with by a politically correct law enforcement apparatus that spends more time looking at Americans than foreign terrorists (if you don't believe me, simply review the FBI, IRS, and BATF actions under the Clinton administration) and pour more money into failed socialist programs designed to further eradicate the individual and herald the growth of the State.
Think that'd get a lot of votes outside New York, Massachusetts or California? I'm guessing it'd be on the shy side of accepted.
Now, back to the wherefore's and the why's. Consider that in the '94 Republican sweep of Congress, those who came in as freshmen were in no way capable of influencing policy. Those spots were reserved for the new Chairmen, because that sort of thing is seniority-based. All the '94 revolution did was ascend to the Chairmanships Ford and Rockefeller-style '70's Republicans who tended to be of the liberal country-club variety and more in agreement regarding policy with their Democrat brethren than the new Turks. To this day, I think perhaps one Congressman from that wave ascended to a Chairmanship. Their "Contract with America", while a good start, never stood a real chance against Congressional bureaucracy.
Also, all Congressmen regardless of party affiliation tend to become "institutionalized" after a few years in Washington. With some exceptions, the bulk tend to identify more with their Washington brethren than those in their home districts. It's the old "1 tyrant 1000 miles away or 1000 tyrants 1 mile away" motif. You trade a absolute monarch for an elected oligarchy that generally (again with exceptions) loses touch with the voters and values that got them elected. This argument works best on moderate to conservative members of Congress. Liberals are in their natural habitat as Washington since the New Deal has been decidedly Leftist in its bent and bureaucracy, perhaps even before that.
Combining abandoment of your principles, what got you elected in the first place with a decided lack of ability to really change direction of the Congressional Titanic made for a combination few seemed willing to acknowledge until now. Conservatives and libertarian types were doomed from the start. The big government machine has proven, for this round at least, to have better staying power.
And although we did throw much of the baggage out, it was mostly Republican baggage. The most corrupt of the Democrats, from ABSCAM Murtha to Freezer Cash Jefferson are not only still in Congress, many of them are jockeying for leadership positions.
This more than anything makes Pelosi's claim that she will bring ethics and integrity back to Congress make me want to vomit Day-Glo. Sorry for the visual. It's about the only way I can truly capture my disgust with her hypocrisy. And yes, a woman who's probably one of the richest if not the richest PERSON in Congress who professes to be for the working man and Union labor (and who won the 2003 Chavez award from the fruit workers union) while using only non-union labor in her $25 million Napa vineyard, 30+ restaurants and hotel (most of which is likely illegal immigrants) should have her picture in the dictionary next to the word. To spell it out for those who haven't been beaten enough over the head with it yet, she DEFINES hypocrisy.
Now, going back to us getting what we deserved, that the liberal Democrats control Congress is entirely our fault. We didn't demand better acountability from the Republicans and we didn't support the alternatives like Libertarians enough to make a dent. We tolerated their corruption and the money and the scandals enough that these guys stayed in office long enough that we'd have no choice but to toss them out on their ear. Notice, of course, again that corrupt Republicans were sent packing by their constituency, not the myriad of corrupt Democrats. Just a reminder. What's that say about those Democrat constituencies?
And because we didn't weed out these corrupt schmucks in the Primaries and the Left doesn't mind corruption if it gets them power, we got exactly what we deserved. The interesting thing will be to see if anyone of us learns from this and either reforms the Republicans into a leaner and more conservative party or uplifts and supports the more conservative Midwestern Libertarians.
Your alternative is to have a Left-leaning Congress with perhaps a Left-leaning president who sees your freedom and individual liberty as an impediment to their agenda. Sure, you'll be able to marry if you're gay and you'll still live off the government teet if you're a welfare bum, but you'll be as free as a caged lab rat. It's not like you'll have to conform to government rules of behavior or do what they tell you if you take the stolen tax money they offer you(oh wait, that already happens) or have to fork over billions for fraudulent research (embryonic stem cells) or bogus junk science (man-induced global warming), surely. Is it? And for those of you working, surely another 10% or 20% increase in your payroll tax is something you can tolerate "for the public good", right?
Or...we can all get our acts together and go about fixing the mistakes we allowed to happen on our watch from our chosen representatives. Time to roll up the sleeves.
posted by Rob Beck | 6:35 AM
2 Comments:
"Notice, of course, again that corrupt Republicans were sent packing by their constituency, not the myriad of corrupt Democrats. Just a reminder. What's that say about those Democrat constituencies?"
I don't know if it says as much about particular constituencies as it does about the nature of our politics as a whole. Like you say, it wasn't particular policies or individual positions (except possibly some positions Mark Foley may have taken) that drove conservative voters to vote against the Reeps or abstain. It was a perception that the party itself was failing to live up to conservative principles, failing to conduct itself honestly, failing to earn people's votes.
Similarly, it wasn't particular policies or wonderful candidates that drove voters to vote for Dems, except in a relatively few cases. It was (I think) primarily the perception that continuing with a unified one-party government was a very bad idea. Congresscritters are too numerous and squirrelly for most people to bother knowing what theirs is actually up to, beyond party and (possibly) first name. Sure, there are exceptions. But they're exceptions. (This cycle taught me quite a bit about my own Jane Harman, that's for sure. Of course, her seat was safe regardless, despite an almost-meaningful primary challenge.)
A correspondent of mine lives in the district of Chris Shays, the last Congressional Reep in New England. When I asked recently, he told me that he was quite fond of Shays, and glad to have seen him hold onto his seat -- even though he had voted for the Dem. His first priority, he said, was doing what he could to take away the Reeps' majority status. While he was glad that could happen without Shays losing his job, he voted against the party he detested, rather than for the man he respected. That's the psychology that seems to dominate our process.
As for this new legislative majority, I'm curious to see whether these nitwits have learned anything. For the time being, I hope, they'll have plenty to keep them busy with investigations and trying to undo some of the more ridiculous/scary acts that have passed over the last several years. 2008 will probably be a blank slate, and my hope is that by that point we'll have learned enough to start talking about actual governance, rather than fear, partisanship, and corruption.
Okay, maybe hope is too strong a word. Dream?
The dynamics of what happened in the latest mid-term election is a mirror of what's happened in the Montana State legislature over the last 5 years, albeight on a lerger scale. And guess who the republicans brilliantly selected as the RNC chairman in 2002? Republicans as a WHOLE did this to themselves, THEY fed at the trough, THEY fostered Abrimoff, THEY spent like drunken sailors, THEY lied about Iraq, THEY buried their heads in the sand. Can't a conservative FOR ONCE acknowledge the incredible hubris and incompetence of their own party without having to sugar coat their criticism with "but they....". It's like a whiny kid and it's childish. Which even more illustrates how utterly pathetic and non-deserving of governance they've become. Forget THEM, it was YOU!! And Í consider myself conservative!
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