1. The Democrats completely misread the results of the 2008 elections. In that election – and in the 2006 election before it – the public voted against “Republicanism”, not conservatism. Voters booted the Republicans out because they acted like a bunch of drunken Democrats the last 6 years they controlled congress. The Democrats, meanwhile, interpreted the election results as an endorsement of leftism, and are now being disabused of that notion the hard way.
2. This remains a center/right country – average Americans are frugal by nature and always frightened by profligate government spending is always a product of liberal domestic policies. The 2008 elections did nothing to change that.
3. Like every liberal who wants to get elected, the then–Senator Obama lied about who he was during the 2008 campaign, pretending to be a moderate, and promising to pursue moderate, bi-partisan solutions to the big issues facing the country once elected. He then immediately moved radically and unapologetically left once assuming office. The Mass-acre, and the victories by Republicans in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey in November, is in large part the public’s way of telling Democrats they do not appreciate being lied to.
4. The tea party people are important. Liberal Democrats made a huge mistake deciding to vilify them rather than engage them and treat them seriously. The whole Democrat dominance of the national debate really began to break down in earnest last summer, when the leadership of the Party and smarmy leftists all over the country decided to slander the thousands of ordinary citizens who showed up at congressional townhall meetings to protest the manner in which policy was being made in the nation’s capitol.
5. Liberal portrayal of all tea party participants as white redneck racists betrays their fundamental lack of understanding of average, breadbasket Americans who do not live in the Northeast or the West Coast. Because most high-profile liberal thought leaders are elitists who hail from the Northeast or California, liberals in general have no ability to relate to the vast majority of average Americans, no understanding of how they think, and feel such contempt for such Americans that they have no desire to learn. Thus, the leaders of the Democrat Party in Washington, and the leftwing nut jobs who make up the Party’s base of support truly do not get why most Americans oppose idiotic, wasteful proposals like cap and trade and healthcare destruction.
6. Barack Obama is not Bill Clinton. He does not have a pragmatic bone in his body. Clinton got elected in order to be re-elected. That was his first priority. Obama truly believes he was elected to transform America from a representative democracy into a socialist/fascist state. Where Clinton happily decided to adopt conservative positions on a variety of major issues in order to be re-elected, Obama would much rather be relegated to a one-term presidency if being re-elected means he would have to abandon his radical leftist goals.
7. And therein lies the Democrats’ current conundrum. They find themselves today, one year into the Obama presidency, in exactly the same position they found themselves one year into the Clinton presidency. They have gone mad with power, pursued leftwing policies the public does not support, and focused on frivolous matters while failing to address huge issues the public finds more pressing. As a result, they face a coming massive repudiation at the polls this November, and the only possible way to avoid a disastrous outcome in the midterm elections would be for President Obama to stand up and admit his and his Party’s mistakes in a forthright and honest manner, abandon these nutty leftist policy proposals, and begin co-opting conservative positions on the big issues of the day. Not even Bill Clinton could bring himself to do that until after his party had lost both houses of congress in the 1994 midterm elections. The thought that a true-believer leftist radical like President Obama can do it is absurd on its face.
8. Widely respected political analyst Larry Sabato announced on Wednesday his analysis showing that, if the midterm elections were held today, the Democrats would lose 52 net seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Lacking an amazing transformation of the Obama Agenda, those numbers will only get worse for the Democrats over the next 10 months. In the Senate, four Democrats in danger of losing races have already announced their retirements, and four others find themselves either behind or barely ahead in early polling. Again, those numbers will only get worse for the Democrats unless the President changes his priorities.
9. The lesson for the Republicans of the last 2 election cycles still hold – the GOP was demolished at the polls in 2006 and 2008 because it lost its “brand” as the party of conservative ideas – the brand Ronald Reagan gave them and which they retained for 20 years. They have to go back to that brand on spending, taxing, and foreign policy issues. But they also have to be careful not to get back too far to the right on social issues, or they will quickly alienate many of the independent and under-30 voters who voted for Scott Brown last Tuesday.
10. And obviously, they have to be smart about picking candidates whose positions on issues are winnable positions within their states and congressional districts. While the next GOP presidential candidate must be unambiguously conservative on pretty much every issue, you’re not going to get Jesse Helms elected in Maine, nor Olympia Snow elected in North Carolina. There is not a one size fits all set of policy positions that will work everywhere in the nation – that is obvious.
11. Just as the Democrats severely misread the results of the 2008 elections, the Republicans are in danger of doing the same with this election if they come to believe it is somehow an endorsement of a “just say no” position on everything. The public wants ideas on how to address issues like healthcare, but they want ideas that don’t bankrupt the country or destroy their ability to see the doctor of their choice. And they want ideas that don’t amount to a government takeover of the entire system.
12. Conservative ideas – that’s what the Republicans need to start getting out there. That’s what the public is craving to see. And if the Republicans don’t produce them, then the Tea Party will become a very influential entity in the November elections, much the same as Ross Perot became in 1992. This would split the conservative vote, and result in continued Democrat control of all levers of government.
Right now, the GOP finds itself on the precipice of repeating the stunning congressional takeover of 1994. But if they misread the meaning of the Mass-acre to the same extent that the Obama Democrats misread the results of the 2008 elections, they will find themselves on the outside of power looking in for many years to come
No comments:
Post a Comment