The Road to 2010
The press and the Democratic Party may be busy singing the funeral march for the GOP, but it's their own fate that should be concerning them instead.
With only 1 in 3 Nevada voters prepared to support Democratic Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid for reelection in 2010, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi caught lying and feuding with the CIA, the Democratic party doesn't look to be in very good shape.
And that isn't surprising because the Democratic party has invested everything in Obama, and now stands or falls with Obama. But despite the constant media barrage of pro-Obama propaganda, the general public finds Obama likable, but not very competent. The good news is it thought the same thing about Bush. The bad thing is that Obama has earned that rep in only a few months.
While Obama isn't up for reelection in 2010, his omnipresent media image has blanked out the rest of the party. And that is going to be painful for them in 2010.
To hold on to his credibility, the Democratic party needs to repeat Bush's trick of gaining seats during a midseason election. But the victories of 2006 and 2008 are likely to be rolled back in 2010, especially since the party shot its wad in 2008, stretching its lead Congress as far as it can. While the Republican party is flailing badly and Steele has gone from one mistake to another, as the opposition party, the GOP can profit by just showing up. Just showing up won't be enough to deal a serious setback to the Dems, but it showcases how precarious their position is.
Obama's endless world tour, the virtual dismantling of the American auto industry and the bailouts of his Wall Street backers have never been greeted by much enthusiasm, even by his own base. Obama has spent countless billions reward union members, bankers and terrorists-- not a combination to thrill anyone's heart.
Following the Rahm Model, Obama saw an economic crisis and began deficit spending like mad, promising Americans a solution, when he was in fact putting Americans deeply into debt to finance a socialist reconstruction of America. Most Americans won't understand that, but they will understand failure. Much as the media might try to put lipstick on a pig, the unemployment rates, closed storefronts on Main Street and all the other personal economic indicators that people relate to through experience and word of mouth, rather than media infotainment, will weigh against any fictional recovery.
2010 will be a shakedown for America and for Obama. It will be a chance for all those Americans dissatisfied or outraged by what is going on to register their vote of protest. To really make it count though, the Republican party will have to shake itself, get off the mat and begin to fight.
Obama's people and the press have worked to smear and marginalize the more active parts of the Republican party for precisely that reason. People who resist are "extremists". People who give in and let themselves be appointed ambassadors to China are "moderates". And if the GOP actually lets itself buy into that phony dichotomy, becoming the party of Meghan McCain and David Frum , then we will be in serious trouble.
A neutered Republican party would be almost worse than no opposition party at all. Headed for failure, the Obama knows his best bet is to negate public outrage by co-opting Republicans and making them complicit in his abuse of power. Charges directed against Obama driving two generations of Americans deep into debt to fund his own special interests and the socialist reconstruction of America have one best defense, and that is to make sure the Republicans were with him there all the way.
In "The End of Liberalism" by Theodore J. Lowi, the author argued that the beginning of the Second American Republic came about not simply because Social Liberals hijacked the United States government, but because Republicans like Eisenhower and Nixon not only failed to undo what had been done, but actually expanded it. By accepting and participating in the growth of socialism in America, Republicans dealt a decisive blow to Constitutional government.
In 2010 and 2012, if Republicans play to Obama instead of taking him on, the result will not simply be disastrous at an electoral level, but for the long term political future of America. It will mean giving up on opposing Obama's policies and surrendering the last vestiges of the Constitution. It will mean participating and taking the blame for his actions.
The Road to 2010 has to be paved by Obama's broken promises, by his wasteful deficit spending and by the fact that most Americans will be worse off then, than they were in 07 and 08. America let a celebrity be foisted on the oval office, but every TV show must sooner or later go off the air. And based on cable ratings alone, a steady diet of shows about Obama buying a burger or smiling at the camera, isn't playing nearly as well as the story of Obama's corruption and incompetence.
In 2010 Americans will have to choose between those two stories, between insipid rhetoric from a failed party, no longer able to run on a platform of change, and having very little hope left in its arsenal, and the exposure of the greed, corruption and irresponsible spending of the Democratic party from Obama on down.
It's the story that should have been told in 2008. In 2010 we'll have a chance to tell the story again, and this time get it... right.
