GOP Post-Iowa: No Surprises

At Politico, the lead, post-Iowa headline concerning the Republican candidates makes this claim: “GOP race in total disarray.” At TMV earlier this morning, Shaun Mullen suggested it’s time for the GOP to panic. I respect the Politico and Shaun immensely, but I’m compelled to challenge both; the former more so than the latter.

To the writers of the Politico story, John Harris and Jonathan Martin …

Guys, I realize you may not write your own headlines, but your copy still leads us to the “disarray” conclusion … so no excuses. My question is this: Why is disarray in the GOP race considered “news”? For months now, fence-sitting, swing-voting Republicans in Iowa and nationwide have been telling anyone who will listen that they are confused, undecided, less-than-enamored with the entire field, and that they are more than willing to switch loyalties in a heartbeat for the latest poster-boy of the month. So why does it, then, apparently surprise you that a greater percentage of Iowa Republicans (vs. Democrats) stayed home and avoided the caucuses? Why does it seem to be a sudden revelation that this race is up for grabs?

To Shaun …

I don’t take any general exception with what you wrote. But I do wish you had added a sentence or two acknowledging what I think you (like me) already believe, namely that the time for the GOP to panic was years ago (in my view, somewhere around 2005 or earlier) — when a runaway power-concentrating Oval Office and drunk-spending GOP Congress was violating every core principle of the Party of Lincoln. I’m still angry about my own prior blindness to these matters; hell, I didn’t really wake up and realize what had happened to my Party until early 2006. But I will give you this much, Shaun: Maybe now, a majority of Republican voters, particularly those of the dual-moderate sort (inclusive on social issues; reasonable on foreign policy) — voters who I’m still convinced are the real base of the Party, despite their slumbering — will finally wake up and smell the coffee.

Face it, folks: McCain’s the only GOP candidate who could possibly keep pace with the eventual Dem challenger in the general election; but if that Dem challenger is Obama (as it increasingly looks like it will be), even McCain’s heroism and integrity won’t be enough. Accordingly, dual-mod Republicans will need to wait until at least 2012 to resurrect their party. And perhaps that’s a good thing. As slow as we’ve collectively been to recognize the crisis we’re in, the chances are damn good we’ll need another four years to make things right.