The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

David Ignatius of WaPo makes the argument that events of recent months have revealed that the GOP simply wasn't ready for majority rule.

• The bickering over the Miers nomination epitomizes the right's refusal to assume the role of a majoritarian governing party. The awkward fact for conservatives is that the American public doesn't agree with them on abortion rights. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll in late August found 54 percent describing themselves as pro-choice and only 38 percent as pro-life, roughly the same percentages as a decade ago.
  
  That's the political reality that Bush has been trying to finesse with his nominations of John Roberts and Miers.
  
  ****
  
  Bush and the Republicans had a chance after 2004 to become the country's natural governing party. They controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. The Democrats were in utter disarray, leaderless and idea-less. When Bush took the podium in January to deliver his soaring second inaugural address, the future seemed to belong to the Republicans.
  
  Bush squandered this opportunity by falling into the trap that has snared the modern GOP -- of playing to the base rather than to the nation. The Republicans behave as if the country agrees with them on issues, when that demonstrably isn't so. The country doesn't agree about Social Security, doesn't agree about the ethical issues that were dramatized by the torment of Terri Schiavo, doesn't agree about abortion. Yet, in a spirit of blind partisanship, House Speaker Dennis Hastert announced last year that bills would reach the floor only if "the majority of the majority" supported them. That notion of governing from the hard right was a recipe for failure.
  
  What you sense now, as conservative and moderate Republicans alike take potshots at their president, is that the GOP is entering the post-Bush era. A war of succession has begun, cloaked in a war of principles. The cruelest aspect of Bush's predicament is that the conservatives are treating him with the same disdain they showed his father. What a denouement to the West Wing Oedipal drama: A son who did everything he could to avoid his father's humiliation by the conservative wing of the party is now under attack by the right himself.
  
  Principles are a fine thing, but a narrow, partisan definition of principle has led the Republicans to a dead end. Their inability to transcend their base and speak to the country as a whole is now painfully obvious. Like the Democrats in their years of decline, they are screaming at each other -- not realizing how far they have drifted from the mid-channel markers that have always led to open waters and defined success in American politics.

I've been critical of Rove's strategy of campaigning to and governing for the base (instead of the center) since GWB did it so plainly 2004, largely because I (among others) worried that it inevitably created a more corrosive, nastier political environment than was necessary. I hadn't figured, though, that Rove's master plan for a Generational Majority would tumble into infighting over succession in just a couple of years. Go figure.

Gattigap

Thought This Was Interesting . . .
 

This is a WaPo opinion piece by David Ignatius, entitled

"How the Republicans Let It Slip Away."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?nav=hcmodule

Here's the closing paragraph:

"Principles are a fine thing, but a narrow, partisan definition of principle has led the Republicans to a dead end. Their inability to transcend their base and speak to the country as a whole is now painfully obvious. Like the Democrats in their years of decline, they are screaming at each other -- not realizing how far they have drifted from the mid-channel markers that have always led to open waters and defined success in American politics."

Interesting piece, rather critical of the political sense of the GOP hard right. While I agree that the GOP seems to have let "it" slip away -- whatever it is -- that doesn't mean that the Democratic Party is ready to take it.

[ETA -- Damn Gatti -- what are you doing in CA reading my paper so early?]

S_A_M

Thought This Was Interesting . . .
 

What can I say? Old habits die hard. And the LA Times isn't really helping.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

He makes some fair points, but a poll on abortion views hardly represents the full spectrum of views on a variety of political issues. If in fact it did, the democrats should have run away with the election. Obviously something that Bush was promoting appealed to a majority of the voting population.

Overall, however, the article points out that Bush's claim of "having political capital" after the election even more laughable than it was at the time.*


*FWIW, I never understood one to acquire political capital through being elected. One acquires it through being in a position where one can do political favors for others, and they are obligated to return those favors (i.e., "calling in chips"). An election either gives a mandate or does not. Two close elections are not a mandate.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

People complaining about 1 Court choice and an Op piece in WaPo saying so, equals the President's entire support is crumbling?

Wow.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

What was the question in that Poll? I have a feeling it was not "Do you believe that there should be regulation of abortion? Or do you believe in wholly unrelegated retail abortion (NARAL and NOW's efffective position)?

I bet those polls show different percentages, with the majority skewing towards life rather than killing.

I tried, notwithstanding the bias (including your post of earlier today, ykwim).

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

If you think that's all it is, you haven't been paying attention. (Which you have)

If that was all it was, it would not be an issue.

I don't think he's saying what you say ("the President's entire support is crumbling"). He is saying that the GOP has started to tear itself apart at the seams. That doesn't mean the Dems can take it back, though. We'll see.

S_A_M

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

You're right. Like Penske's 1.5 day defection, this'll blow over in a day or two. Onward, ho!

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Hunh? This was pretty common knowledge.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

It's amasing that I get accused of low value posts and yet everyday you and several of yoiur comrades fire unprovoked shots at me that consist solely of personal invective.

Burger, can you explain the value of that post?

And the substantive answer is, I retracted my defection, not my dissent on the nomination.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

so if its common knowledge, recite it.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

OK.

Sounds like the question was:

"With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?"




Now, your turn.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

Are chips more or less valuable than chits? What is a chit, anyway?

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Party
 

The fact that others occasionally have low-value jokey posts doesn't give value to page after page of pics cross-posted from anti-Hilary websites.

Hank has been scolded for his unfunny fringe picture. At least he's limited it.

A parable. Not infrequenly, Lyndon LaRouche drives around the streets of downtown DC in a parade of cars. They have old-fashioned megaphones on top. They have people to distribute flyers to pedestrians. They are loud. Their rhetoric is filled with invective. I've long since learned to turn up the volume on my iPod.