PhotoDude.com

Mon. Oct 16, 2006

The Pendulum and Trickle Down Theory

This past weekend it seemed that many of the rats with blogging capability were jumping off the USS GOP. Glenn Reynolds has even done a GOP Pre-Mortem, which lists a host of good reasons the GOP is in this hole, but very oddly makes absolutely no mention of Iraq, Afghanistan, or Bin Laden and Al Qaeda (i.e., the issues where I hold Bush most accountable) until prodded in the updates. But the “abandon ship” trend is certainly understandable, given the growing number of “How Bad Will it Be” articles being published.

However … there’s three weeks left. Am I supposed to believe the current status quo will hang in stasis for weeks? Does it really take that long to lower the lifeboats? I think not. Somehow I’ve come to expect more from our leaders.

In other words, I expect some more blows to land, somehow, somewhere. We haven’t even gotten to the meaty part of the October calendar when any plotted “surprise” would have the most effect. If you have that kind of thing up your sleeve, you want it to hit during the last 7 days before the election, at most, so you don’t allow time for actual analysis and investigation. Just the desired “push.”

For example, if you were going to out a Republican Congressman as a page turner purely in an effort to turn the election November 7, you wouldn’t do it on September 29. Big as it was, the Foley story was white hot for 9 to 12 days. A well timed “October Surprise” would make sure that “white hot” period included Election Day.

And in some quarters, there seems to be almost an aching for it. Because, in some quarters, it seems like the only hope left.

Fred Barnes: “What’s needed is an event — a big event — to crystallize the issue in a way that highlights Republican strength and Democratic weakness. It was two events — the foiled British terrorist plot and the need to comply with a Supreme Court decision on handling captured terrorists — that led to the Republican mini-rally in September.”

Charlie Cook: “If things don’t change, GOP incumbents, who never even contemplated having a difficult race, may well lose this year. And if I were a Republican, I’d start praying that something happens to take the spotlight away from Iraq and scandals, because this current issue mix is lethal.”

Meanwhile, back at the White House…

Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.

The question is whether this is a case of justified confidence — based on Bush’s and Rove’s electoral record and knowledge of the money, technology and other assets at their command — or of self-delusion. Even many Republicans suspect the latter. Three GOP strategists with close ties to the White House flatly predicted the loss of the House, though they would not do so on the record for fear of offending senior Bush aides.

Washington Post: White House Upbeat About GOP Prospects

And there’s complaints about this overconfidence from Republicans who say Bush has no plan at all for a GOP loss. So we appear to have a cocky assumption of victory, with no plan for a negative aftermath. Well, that does sound like a trend, eh?

But it truly is a serious question in my mind: what upcoming change in this harsh political environment do Bush and Rove know about … that we don’t? Or, is it a case of Occam’s Razor; the most likely explanation is the simplest. In this case, that would be that Bush and Rove are as out of touch with reality about the coming election as they have been on most important issues of late.

I’d lean towards the latter, if it wasn’t for the fact Rove has told some Republican cohorts to expect an “October Surprise.” But I’ve already covered that topic. And it may turn out that the October Surprise is … that there’s no October Surprise.

In which case, I believe we will have a cascade of November Surprises. First of all, that article above that quotes sources who want to remain anonymous due to “fear of offending senior Bush aides” or anyone else in the White House? That “fear” is going to be a thing of the past very soon.

Obviously, any newly empowered Democrats in Congress won’t fear offending the White House. But perhaps more importantly, neither will a lot of surviving Republicans in Congress. Why should they? If control of Congress is lost Nov. 7, Bush will be the lamest of ducks. For the kind of Republican loss I think is coming, there’s got to be a scapegoat. And after Nov. 7, there will be one Lame Duck Nominee for that position.

After all, they’ll need to put some distance between themselves and the Do Nothing record of the 109th Congress. So Bush will get blamed for the electoral debacle by many of his own former allies on the Hill. It will be a prelude to the civil war the party will undergo in 2008, as the Republican Party tries to cast a new image. And I think it will be a completely Bush-free image. Scrubbing him off will be the quickest way to appear fresh and clean. I expect that to begin November 8th.

It also fits in with my decades long observation that American Politics is like a big slow moving pendulum. In fact, I recently stumbled across an article I wrote over a year and a half ago, shortly after the beginning of this 109th Congress which is (thankfully) soon to come to an end. On March 26, 2005, I wrote about Republican De-Evolution:

And all of this has shown the fractures within the Republican party (with more to come), fractures that have been held together by having a two term President and control of both houses of Congress for the first time in, I don’t know, forever. I think it was the goal that kept them together. Now, they’re a bit like the dog who’s chased cars his whole life, and now has finally caught one. What exactly are you going to do with it? And in 2008, with no “heir apparent” to Bush, I think we’ll see all these fractures erupt. Viciously.

It seems that politics in America has always been one big pendulum, and there can be no denying that it has swung to the right over the past five years or so. But the danger is those that see the pendulum swinging their way, and then put their weight behind it in an effort to push it further.

Invariably, this is when the pendulum starts swinging back, and eventually it will crush those who were trying to push it too far.

But here’s all I can say for sure; after witnessing the Constitutionally blasphemous results of a mere three months of this 109th Congress, barring a major miracle, I cannot see myself placing a single vote for a single Republican for state legislature or Congress in 2006.

Well, here we are near the end of that 109th Congress, and if I have to say so myself, I nailed it 19 months ago. Some of those who pushed too far have already been brushed aside by the pendulum. More will follow in three weeks.

As for me, one of the things I learned from Republicans in the 80’s is the “trickle down” theory. The concept that the actions of those large fish at the top of the food chain trickle down upon the smaller fish and guppies lower in the food chain. Of course, they meant it in a positive way, a beneficial “trickle down.”

But other things run downhill, too.

What I said 19 months ago, “I cannot see myself placing a single vote for a single Republican for state legislature or Congress in 2006,” well, that’s one of those other things that runs downhill. I realize that John Q. Georgia, running for county commissioner as a Republican, has no actual responsibility for the goings on in DC, on the Hill or in the White House.

But they’ve chosen affiliation with a party that is responsible. And, in my opinion, if change is most likely to come from the grass roots, they’ve got to get the same message.

So that will be my operative philosophy when I step in the voting booth. Trickle down. No matter who says “boo” between now and Nov. 7.