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Tue. Nov 04, 2008

Republican Postmortem

I know it is a difficult day for those who vote Republican. In fact, it’s been a difficult year, filled with bile, bewilderment, and disappointment. And for some, delusion as well.

It’s time to pack all that away, and look at the world anew. It’s time to ask with new eyes, how did the Republican Party get to this ugly place?

And I don’t mean the short term fingerpointing that has been going on for a couple of weeks now. The fact the backbiting couldn’t even wait until after election day is indicative of the problem, but doesn’t provide the answer.

It seems clear that there are many who will try to scapegoat Sarah Palin as “The Reason We Lost,” and we’ve seen the beginnings of this prior to election day with the leaked comments from McCain staffers about her behavior and temperament.

I’m reminded of the time I lamented to my Dad that in my job as program director of a radio station, I was “surrounded by turkeys.” He simply replied, “who let that happen?”

In other words, if Palin was a “diva,” or a “whack job” as some McCain aides have anonymously described her, one has to ask … how did she get there? Who was responsible for vetting and picking her? How much vetting would it take to determine she had the strong potential to be a diva whack job?

Others point to the decisions made by McCain’s campaign “strategists,” and the erratic tactics they deployed (seemingly with no backing strategy, just tactics). But whether it is campaign strategists or the VP candidate, ultimately one person chose those folks … John McCain.

But it is my opinion that none of that mattered to the outcome, except perhaps the size of the loss. But the loss itself was nearly pre-ordained.

We watched the Republican Party settle on John McCain as the candidate almost by a process of elimination. Romney, Guliani, and Huckabee ended up strongly opposed by one faction or another of the Republican Party. In effect, ruled out. McCain was the one who somehow managed to not to do that, though not many Republicans seemed very excited by his eventual victory.

But I really don’t think it would have mattered who they nominated. The environment was simply too harsh for Republicans to win.

One would hope they would start their re-assessment by looking for the source of that harsh environment. And there’s no need to look to Wasilla or Sedona, you can start your search at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and end it at the Naval Observatory (residence of VP Dick Cheney).

You can start with the promises they made in 2000. Bush said he would be a “uniter not a divider” and Cheney said they would “restore honor” in the executive branch. For the past eight years, various people have accused them of lying about various things.

But those were The Original Sins. Mr. Uniter leaves with the lowest approval rating ever, showing time and time again that he was truly Mr. Divider, and Mr. Restore Honor’s former Chief of Staff is a jailed felon.

Need we even mention details like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Katrina, “dead or alive,” weapons of mass destruction, etc.? Oh, they had help along the way from Mark Foley, Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Larry Craig, Ted Stevens, etc.

But the reputation of the Republican Party was destroyed by the two men who held the top offices the last eight years. Anything McCain or Palin did amounted to a quick coat of cheap paint on an already burning husk of a party.

In my opinion, they are not fully to blame for these results. Oh, surely, they contributed to the outcome by running an absolutely lousy campaign, but they started this relay race 100 yards behind and got a bloody botched handoff from their predecessors. Usain Bolt couldn’t have won this race.

Therefore, those who hope to rebuild the Republican Party need to turn away from the Bush/Cheney legacy, not attempt to revive it. If the Republican Party decides it simply wasn’t far enough to the right in this election, and rallies around Palin as their Best Hope for 2012, then I expect The Sarah Party will become a minority rump lucky to hold 25% of the vote (in 2004 36% of Americans labeled themselves as Republicans; in 2008, it’s down to 29%; in 2012 … ?).

Those who claim Palin is the sole remaining Republican “brand name” will see some challenges from the likes of Romney, Huckabee, or Gingrich. Those who say she’s the sole rising star in the party will hear from folks like Bobby Jindal and Eric Cantor.

One might say, “there will be blood.” Palin will next be savaged by those within her own party.

It’s been my philosophy for a couple of years that the best thing anyone can do for the Republican Party … is to vote against it. To send them off into the wilderness on a spirit walk to find themselves. And it would appear that is pretty much what has happened.

But what I perhaps had not considered is that many will refuse to go on that spirit walk. And it may well be that some portion of the Republican Party rallies around Palin as their new standard bearer. We could end up with a country where about 38% label themselves Democrat, and perhaps 25% label themselves as a “Palin Republican.”

Leaving 37% who accept neither label. Or are looking for a new one.

Could it be we will see the existing Republican Party split in two, with one part forming something new (see Whigs, 1852-56 … from which the republican party was born)? Given the Real World abandonment of the philosophy by Republicans, perhaps it is time for a “Conservative” Party.

Even if only in rhetorical terms, that could be some fertile ground to build upon. The Republican Party once stood for fiscal responsibility, small government and personal freedom. It can once again. But not by embracing the past.

It’s a new world. Someone’s got to reclaim those philosophies, and adapt them to this new environment.