GOP and Survival of the Fittest
The Washington Times featured an interesting post election analysis that showed that Republican Senators gave far less money to struggling candidates than did Democrats. I believe that this is relatively true in the House races as well. It was not that they soberly calculated that they were going to lose in a landslide and decided not to throw good money after bad. They just threw their candidates, who were within fractions of a percentage point of winning, under the bus. Why?
I wonder if this is a symptom of a fundamental “survival of the fittest” instinct among Republicans – Colleagues and constituents just have to suck it up and get it done without aid or bailouts. This seems to be one explanation why conservatives raided the Treasury with a massive increase in Earmarks and no-bid contracts in Iraq and New Orleans. I sometimes wonder if the War in Iraq was merely a payback to the business interests of the Military-Industrial Complex. It seems to me that they did all of this because they could.
Alpha Males in Congress (like Tom Delay) manipulated rules to avoid accountability for questionable ethics, Pay-go rules were suspended to allow the country to go further into debt while cutting taxes to the rich, most of whom support the GOP. If Democrats and the disadvantaged were ignored, that was just tough. It almost seemed like a mob mentality. Normally wholesome people like Senator Frist and Speaker Hastert got swept up in the feeding frenzy. Even moderate Senator Chafee admits that he did not stand up to the frenzy of power because he didn’t want to risk damaging the interests of Rhode Island.
This disappoints me because I believe that power corrupts and the Democrats also can easily fall back under its spell. But the GOP does not seem to be preparing to make a credible effort to convince moderate voters that they can collaborate, cooperate and govern. Their plan, as far as I can tell, is to thwart Democratic progress.
Meanwhile, I received an email recently from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee asking me about my priorities and if I had any suggestions to them for keeping and expanding their control of Congress.
That’s the way to court moderates.
28 Responses to “GOP and Survival of the Fittest”
I think the Republicans problems was the incredibly bad leaders of both Senator Frist and Speaker Hastert. Both were visionless and thus lousy leaders.
However, in the long run, it does not matter, the Democrats are on the road to almost complete dominance of politics in the leadership.
The question should not be what is wrong with the Republicans but what will the US be like with only one viable political party.
It looked like a feeding frenzy from my end as well. It seemed to me that they were trying to show how the government could not be trusted by giveing us an example in poor governance.
Thanks!
The Democrats weren’t exactly centrists from 2004-2006 either, they too tried to thwart the Republicans’ agenda.
Democrats obstructing the GOP was standing up to a “mob mentality” but Republicans obstructing the newly empowered Democrats is dirty politics? Hmm…
Obstructing the GOP agenda was the only coherent position anyone could articulate from Democrats the last few years. Which is probably why, despite widespread voter disgust, they made only fairly modest gains in 2006 in what should have been a landslide year from them.
And given just how generously Republicans spent on each other in previous years, I’d say that the point you’re wondering on is based on a poor reading of history.
By the way, as someone who utterly supported–and still supports–the liberation of Iraq, I get really, really tired of so-called “moderate centrists” openly suggesting that such support cannot be principled and based on a sober analysis and is instead some sort of mindless Republican drone-hood or a desire to make a profit. Give me a frickin’ break. If you want to enrich your oil business buddies with government funding, there are infinitely better and more lucrative ways to go about it than going to war with fascist mass-murderers.
Like a few others (emphasis on few), I would be very excited to see a re-invigorated, re-focused GOP. Like many others, including the commenters to this post and its author, I fear this reform won’t happen, at last not in the near term. I predict It will take another cataclysmic election before GOP leadership wakes up and smells the coffee. By that point, it may be too late, and we could very well see the birth of a third party (which wouldn’t be such a bad outcome after all).
Pete,
In the long run, the National Republican Party will be very similar to the current Republican party in California, a permanent minority that is incapable of affecting policy or spending.
Also, I wonder if all of the Democrats who talked about the benefits of divide government will be making the same claim in 2008 when not only will the Democrat, more than likely, win control of the executive branch but could win a 60 seat majority in the Senate.
Dean,
Why do you think the GOP congress folk were so uniformly miserly this past election? Did they innocently believe Rove that it was in the bag?
I also support the Iraqi Liberation. But I can’t ignore who profited the most from these bizarre circumstances.
Pete,
If you look at the demogrpahic trends of the United States, there is virtually no chance that the Republicans can make a significant come back. The future of politics in the US will probably look like the current political situation in California where the Democratic Party is dominate and the Republicans stand no chance of ever affecting policy or spending.
Peter,
There is virtually no chance for a Republican come back. If you look at the demographics of the United States, national politics around the time of 2020 will resemble California politics today.
I don’t see how anyone can claim the Democrats were able to be obstructionist, given Republican control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives.
Also, I’m not really sure what got obstructed.
Any explaination along these lines would be helpful.
BYG
I agree with you that Dems were generally just along for the ride. But they were able to create some obstacles, along with Moderate Republicans, on SS accounts, Estate Tax, immigration.
“Obstructing the GOP agenda was the only coherent position anyone could articulate from Democrats the last few years.”
Given the GOP agenda the last few years, that was an admirable and desperately needed thing for Democrats to do. Trying to destroy the political opposition once and for all, operating the government like a vending machine for Republican’s financial backers, and pulling spite jobs like calling the Capitol Police to haul Democrats out of an empty meeting room just for spite don’t equate with good government, regardless of any ideological considerations.
Invading the wrong country on trumped-up charges and a campaign of, at the least, gross exaggerations if not outright lies, is downright evil. And please, spare me any nonsense about freedom and democracy in Iraq. Those people are free to be kidnapped, tortured, shot, burned and blown up, and precious little else.
Republicans would be wise to rid themselves of the neoconservative bullies, crooks and crackpot warmongers who’ve taken over their party and turned it into something ominously resembling organized crime.
SW Anderson,
My post was in part a lament that the more pragmatic and civil members of the GOP do not seem to be succeeding, or at least trying, to wrest control from the wingers. Do you see any reason to be hopeful?
As much as I would love to see the GOP finished as a national Party, the obituaries are much too soon. Just two years ago, similar elegies were written for the Democrats.
The GOP’s crowning accomplishment is undermining the entire concept of government that works for the greater good of the country’s citizens. In no area of policy or legislation did the “common prosperity and general welfare” weigh at all with them. It was all about wedge issues, enriching their sponsors and themselves, and protecting a rogue Administration. Everything else didn’t just take a back seat; everything else never had a seat.
If the Democrats do nothing else, I hope they reinvigorate the most essential and basic foundation of America: a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
The GOP had it all, and the Dems didn’t obstruct nearly as much as they should have (Patriot Act,
TortureMilitary Commissions Act, Alito, Roberts, the war, the irresponsible tax cuts, deficit spending, trashing the dollar, etc.)Social Security? No one favored that idiotic attempt to divert our retirement savings to the investment banks, and it was more the AARP (representing 35 million older Americans) that called the GOP on that crap than the Dems. All the Dems had to do was sit back and watch the Repubs grab the “third rail” and fry their domestic agenda.
Paul: Since they weren’t “miserly” in any recent elections before 2006, why were they so “miserly” now? Gee, maybe because it was obvious to them that they were going to lose no matter what.
If you’re wondering, here are the predictions I made a month before the election. Which, if I may say so, were pretty frickin’ on the money. I was wrong in only one very minor matter.
So please, let’s get over it: if the Republicans were so “miserly” because they routinely believe in “survival of the fittest,” you’d have to explain why they were NOT so “miserly” in previous elections. Which they were not.
As for BYG and others: I very much look forward to the day when Democrats hold the House, the Senate, and the White House again, which they undoubtedly will in the future. After all, as the Evil Satanic Demon Karl Rove has said many times, there are no permanent majorities in American politics. Democrats will be ascendant at times, and Republicans will be ascendant at times. That’s how the system works.
But it’s going to be instructive when such political naifs witness the day a Democratically controlled House, Senate, and White House all face an obstinate, obstructionist Republican minority that criticizes, demonizes, and obstructs everything they say or do.
Those with a little introspection will recognize it for what it is: the system as it’s always worked.
Dean–
Isn’t it more accurate to say the Republican moderates were responsible for whatever obstructions you care to name?
Dean,
I wonder if the reason the Senators became stingy this election may be related to their near total control of the government. As in an out of balance ecosystem, nature tries to correct itself. Normally cooperative predators begin to cull each other from the herd until resources are back in balance.
I think you are right that the political pendulum does swing back and forth. But perhaps the Dems can slow the swing by moving the center of gravity towards the middle and adapting conservative characteristics like trying to balance the budget, reducing the deficit, reducing inefficiencies in government operations, simplifying the tax system… If they pull this off then the GOP may only have a chance to regain influence by moving to the middle as well and trying to fix health care, SS, energy, immigration…
CaseyL,
In the long run, the Republicans will fad away due to demograhics if nothing else. Since 90% of blacks, 70% of Hispanics, and 65% of Asians vote Democratic no matter what, there is nothing that the Republicans can do in the long run to remain viable.
California is probably the best example. There is no prospect for the Republicans to regain a majority in California even though the Democrats have done a pretty lousy job of running the state. What California is today is what national politics will be by 2020.
The real question will be is what will the U.S. be like with only one viable political party. If you look at states like DC, New Jersey, or Mass. it will not be very pleasant for most people.
They just threw their candidates, who were within fractions of a percentage point of winning, under the bus. Why?
Because even established candidates were worried that they could lose this year. George Allen was supposed to be the next president, Richard Pombo had an lock in his gerrymandered district, The entire Republican establishment of Ohio and Kansas were reeling, a black Democrat nearly won Bill Frist’s seat in Tennessee. Previous elections were different – this year they were playing for survival, not ‘survival of the fittest’.
The Republicans were playing defense this year, and losing. Look at the list of candidates George Bush campaigned for in the last months – most were high level officers in red districts – and many of them lost.
Paul Silver, regarding hopefulness about GOP moderates wresting control of their party from the neocon scourge, I think it’s much too soon to tell, but not to hope.
I’m not reassured by seeing how readily Bush and the rest of the Republicans can raise money, no matter how awful their performance in office. That tells me the selfish, cynical people who see the Republican Party as an investment vehicle still think they’ll get their best return on investment by paying the right-wing extremist neocons’ way.
If you look at states like DC, New Jersey, or Mass. it will not be very pleasant for most people.
DC isn’t a “state”: it has no representation in Congress, and that’s a big part of the problem.
As for MA and NJ, what’s so lousy about those states?
As for California… it has the 5th biggest economy in the world. I don’t see how being a Democratic state has hurt them.
When you look at the quality of life and relative prosperity of “blue” v. “red” states, it’s obvious the blue do better. Why is that?
What can the GOP offer? To use corporate-speak, what added value does it give to the country to justify supporting it?
CaseyL wrote:
“The GOP’s crowning accomplishment is undermining the entire concept of government that works for the greater good of the country’s citizens. In no area of policy or legislation did the ‘common prosperity and general welfare’ weigh at all with them.”
Bullseye!
If you look at states like DC, New Jersey, or Mass. it will not be very pleasant for most people.
Better standard of living, better medical care, better schools, better wages, lower crime rates. I’ve lived in Democratic states like California and Massachusetts, and in Republican states like Tennessee and Texas. Massachusetts even beats all other states in having the lowest divorce rate. What horrors are you imagining?
If you look at the demographic statistics of “blue” states like New Jersey, Mass., or even Maryland, you will see that the middle class is moving out. This is especially for the native born white middle class. New Jersey may be a great place if you are rich or have a large family clan to help support you but for everybody else it is just too expensive to live there. Why else do you think so many people moved to New Hampshire from Mass. or to North Carolina from New Jersey. Do you see anyone from Georgia moving to New Jersey? NO.
[...] GOP and Survival of the Fittest [...]
When you view the achievements of the Bush administration and the Republican-led 109th Congress, it becomes obvious that their leadership has benefitted the few, at the expense of the many. Bill Clinton often used the phrase “benefitting the common good” when campaigning for Democratic candidates last fall. Why? Because it drew voters’ attention to the fact that Republican policies had only benefitted a narrow core interest group of Republican donors. The rest of America was left blowing in the wind, as the government was largely dysfunctional for everyone else.
To have wanted Iraq to become a free and stable country is not a sign of Republican drone-hood. To think it’s going to happen anytime in the near future after everything the Bush administration has screwed up is a sign of mindless Republican drone-hood.