I Blame The GOP: Five Reasons It’s Their Fault The Gains November 2 Won’t Be...
PerlStalker
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Ace has a provocative post up today about how conservatives are sitting on their duffs and that might mean only modest gains on November 2–when we could have dramatic gains if we wanted to have them, but we’re too apathetic and lazy to get involved. He says:
Based on this analysis I am giving up on my big predictions and scaling back to something like 44 seats or so. We will lose all the close races (we always do), and people like Ruth McClung and Sean Bielat will lose. Only the lock seats will come through for us.
You know what the Democrats call a loss of 44 seats after they’ve socialized health care and blown up the budget to Greek levels? Acceptable losses. They’ll take that, all day and twice on Sundays. Because they’ve now set the country on an inexorable path to socialism. They’re playing the long game, while we’re… well we’re not playing any game at all.
A couple thoughts:
1. The State Republican party organizations nationwide are in a shambles. I’m going to write about this after the election, but suffice it to say that if Texas is a mess (and it is) on the state level and locally, it’s a mess nearly everywhere.
2. The National Party decision, ten years ago, to microtarget and only put effort where effort would be a short term yield is harming the big picture now. So, they started excelling at gaining short term yardage but lost their passing game and are now, incapable, of adequately spreading the field. They simply don’t have the receivers there.
3. The Republican party has become a crusty, addled, put-in-your-time party. Merit mattered less than time served. In essence, the Republicans operated like the NEA or AFL-CIO. You pay your dues, your spot is assured. Younger, smarter, better candidates were pushed to the side and told to wait. Had Marco Rubio, for example, listened to the calcified Florida state party and the NRSC, he would be running for Florida Attorney General and it would be a disaster for the party both in Florida and for Republicans nationwide.
4. The Republican party refused to support the upstart candidates because they’re still more concerned about power than principle. So, REPUBLICANS, yes Republicans, who won their primaries have had to fend off attacks by THEIR OWN party in order to win against Democrats. See Joe Miller in Alaska and Sharron Angle in Nevada, as examples. Do you know how much time, money and effort it takes to fight on two fronts? The Republican establishment in these states have done this. The Republican Senators should have stripped Mulkulski of everything in Alaska and told she would be persona non-grata in Washington, D.C. Let her go Democrat to caucus if she won (she wouldn’t). Instead, once again, they defy principle and want power first.
5. Locally, the Republicans are inept and distrustful of the Tea Party folks. So, they don’t welcome the help. They him and haw and waste time and dither and kvetch and worry. They don’t DO.
There are other factors here:
Culturally, Americans are deciding they don’t want the Democrats big socialistic push, but they want a nice tight safety net, too. In short, I’m not sure Americans are sure, yet, what they want.
People still hate the Republican party–and all the reasons listed above just add to the disgust people feel for a party that STILL can’t seem to find a moral center. They’re politically expedient mushes. At least the Dems believe something; even if everyone hates everything they believe in, they do believe something.
Finally, conservatives have jobs and employees and responsibilities. A lot of the money pouring into campaigns comes from these small donors spreading their wealth around to candidates far and wide.
What the Republicans need now, though, are boots on the ground. Good old fashioned door-knocking and get-out-the-vote efforts are needed. Two problems: The organization and the people just aren’t there like they need to be.
A long term proposition for the Republican party is to rebuild the party on the state and local level and to organize the energy and people of the Tea Party. Keep in mind, most of these people are taking days off work to go to Tea Parties.
Knocking on doors and getting out the vote and poll watching/judging/clerking are day-long efforts and important ones. In the swing districts, where, like Ace mentions, the place is predominantly blue, good organization and bodies matter.
The problem, of course, is that the Republicans wrote off Barney Frank’s district and every other solid blue district believing that it was unfathomable that Republicans could ever win there. And yet, Scott Brown sits now in the Senate as proof the cynics running the Republican party were wrong.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it got burned in only a couple days. We’ve seen the damage the Democrats can do with unfettered power in two years. Conservatives and libertarians and average, apathetic Americans who loath politics and the politicians running things in particular, have lots of ground to make up. Democrats have spent years, decades, putting together a plan to dismantle the Republic.
Rebuilding the Republican party, or abandoning them (if they refuse to find their core values and start living them) and building something new and better is going to take some time. Those of us sitting, watching, writing, waiting and now, helping spur this Tea Party revolution, are frustrated as all hell. It could be so much better right now. And it could be. It’s excruciating to be at such cross-roads politically and fall short not because of unfair refs (and there is that, too–the close races will go Dem because they excel at “finding” votes) or because of glamorous opposing candidates, but because of our own ineptitude. When a team beats itself, of falls short in the bracket because of coaching…well, it really hurts. There’s no one to blame but themselves.
If the gains on Tuesday fall short of the potential changes, I blame the GOP.
P.S. No matter how it turns out Tuesday, know this: we could have won more had the Republicans had their crap together. Know this, too, the leaders of the Republican party are the ones who lost the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. They are the ones who chose power over principle, over and over and over again. They might get leadership positions, but they have not earned them.
Not by a long shot. If they had any shame, they’d be ashamed.
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