Something I’ve noticed about the GOP these days is that they’re having the same problems that the Dems had from 2000 to 2006.
The first problem is that they’re reacting to the Dems, instead of seizing the initiative. Almost everything the GOP does is now a reaction to the Dems. Despite their majority in the house, the GOP is basically allowing itself to be defined by the programs and policies put forth by their opposition.
This extends to the man in the street. Every conservative I know spends most of their time bitching about liberals, instead of putting their own ideas forward. Instead of putting down a concrete platform, the right has become obsessed with scandals and rumors that the center couldn’t care less about.
Look how well that strategy worked for the Democratic party in 2004.
I’d suggest that - at the grass roots level - the right assemble a list of workable and effective ideas and arguments. The reason I stress effective is this: After all the talk of slashing the budget, the total spending reduction put forth by the GOP house amounted to a glorious 1% of all spending. Between that and the fact that all of the cuts were blatantly aimed at democratic-backed social programs rather than real cost-savings, the GOP lost quite a bit of credibility, as can be seen by congressional approval ratings.
Clearly, the GOP is going to have to do better, and soon. If they’re going to cut spending, they’re going to have to get a bigger cleaver.
The second problem is that the right - much like the left in 2004 - is buying its own hype; listening to its own press, so to speak. President Bush’s approval ratings in 2004 were abysmal, so the Democrats thought that he could be beaten by any old loser that they nominated...So they ran a joke of a politician by the name of John Kerry, who was unable to stop running his mouth, and who couldn’t stay on topic to save his ass. As we all know, he was beaten like the family mule.
Sound familiar? The average announcement-to-implosion time for GOP hopefuls is now somewhere around a week. Huckabee is out...Supposedly because “Jesus told him not to runâ€, but it probably had more to do with 4 dead state troopers. Pawlenty has a pedo hanging around his neck like an albatross, Christie won’t run, Palin has jumped the shark, and Trump was just attention whoring. The only viable candidate for anyone but the hard right is Romney, and he hasn’t got the right in his pocket, because he acts like a democrat half the time. Bachmann has no hope at all as the head of the ticket, and the very fact that Cain got any press at all is a bad sign.
I’m not saying the situation is hopeless. The Smiler IS beatable...But the right is going to have to dig up a Ronald Reagan somewhere, and nobody on the playing field fits the bill. Add to this the general impression that “Obama is out in 2012 no matter what†that many conservatives have (mostly because the only people they speak to or listen to have the same opinions), and you have a recipe for disaster in 2012.
If I were a betting man, and I am, I’d be putting my money on Obama winning in 2012 (Never bet like a fan.), the house remaining GOP by a slim majority, and the senate remaining democrat by about the same slim majority it has now. Not because Obama is doing a bang-up job, and not because Pelosi’s gang of halfwits did a great job from 2006-2010, but because the GOP is spinning its wheels in the exact same fashion that got the GOP into the house in 2010.
Okay for now,
Dok
