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We lost the House. We lost the Senate. As we struggle to get through the morning after, there’s only one thing to do – summon the circular firing squad. Don’t worry, I’m kidding. Sort of. For this is indeed the time to take a hard look at what brought us to this sorry juncture.
The first thing I want to do is enumerate a few things that did not cost us this election. It wasn’t the media. We faced the same media in 2002 and 2004 and prevailed. And it wasn’t the savvy campaigning orchestrated by a suddenly gifted group of Machiavellian Democrats. That one doesn’t fly either. The Democratic Party remains the organization that allowed John Kerry access to a microphone a week before the election.
Most importantly, we didn’t lose because our countrymen suddenly misplaced the virtues that make America great. It is a distinctly liberal trait to blame “the people” when they don’t vote as one would dictate. I’ll brook none of that from our side. The fact is, we thought our country would be better off with a Republican congress. We made a case to the American people. They didn’t buy it because they thought it was a weak case.
And you know what? They were right. In the closing weeks of the campaign season, I felt like I was a lawyer who had a bad client while writing this blog. That client was the Republican Party which had broken its Contract with America from 1994 and had become unmoored from its conservative principles. As its advocate, I couldn’t make a more compelling case for Republicans staying in power than the fact that the Democrats would be worse. I believed in that case, but when that’s all the party gave its advocates to work with, you can honestly conclude that Republicans got this drubbing the old fashioned way – we earned it.
THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE past six years has been the White House’s ongoing inability to express the rationale for the so-called war on terror. For most of you reading this site, the rationale is obvious and well known: There exists an enormous segment of the Muslim world that seeks our destruction. Either we transform our malefactors, or the world’s fate will be unimaginably horrific.
This is a long war, and yet leading Republicans including the one in the White House have yet to articulate why it’s necessary. On the campaign trail, only Rick Santorum embraced the challenges that our country faces. Our other candidates and especially the Liddy Dole-led RSCC weren’t worthy of the era.
In the war of ideas, the White House has also been a disappointment. The president has never clearly acknowledged the stakes or even who our enemy is. At no point has President Bush called for sacrifice, or even encouraged more young people to join the military.
The president could have been using his bully pulpit to insist that all our universities welcome ROTC back on campus. He had an ally on that front in the departed president of Harvard who also happened to be a former Democratic Secretary of the Treasury. He eschewed this opportunity, and we can label it just one of the countless blown chances of the past five years.
The president could also explain, as Eisenhower did, that the economy has to stay strong for us to be able to prosecute this long war. Thus, tax policies that foster economic growth are not inconsistent with a call for sacrifice. Again, this is a case that has never been made.
You add it all up, and the people are right to wonder why our boys are dying in Iraq. Because the president hasn’t made the mission’s importance clear, it seems like a folly. It seems like vanity. It seems like pride. In truth it is a fight for our very survival, but this has been an argument left to the likes of the Weekly Standard, the National Review and Victor Davis Hanson to make. We’ve tried, but we preach mostly to the choir.
The president has had the chance to do more, but as of yet he hasn’t chosen to do so. Has he lost faith in the American people? If so, then he more than anyone else needs to look in the mirror this morning.
SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? The most important thing we can do as conservatives and as Republicans, starting today, is to show a seriousness of mission that has been conspicuously lacking the last couple of years.
That means that for the time being there are certain itches that we cannot scratch. I doubt many people reading this page are thrilled with the prospects of Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Dingell and Leader Reid. But you know what? They won, and they get the spoils. And we have to work with them and try to get this war moving in the right direction. There may come a time for partisan sniping, but that time is not this morning. Everyone involved in leading this nation now has the sacred duty to serve their country first, last and only.
If we can usher out the partisan rancor that has so marred the past five years, then we must. It’s here that George Allen can play a key role.
It’s no secret that I haven’t been a huge admirer of the Senator’s campaign. I thought it was beneath him, and beneath our political system. The fact that the Webb campaign was every bit as bad didn’t make the Allen campaign any nobler.
Now George Allen has a chance. He can announce that he will let the electoral process run its course but decline the invitation to lawyer up. And we can support him. The vicious cycle that began with Al Gore in 2000 can be ended. Graciousness can be returned to American politics. It is perhaps a deliciously ironic coda to this election season that the candidate who waged the season’s ugliest and most inept campaign can be the guy to restore class and dignity to the American political system. This is a real opportunity for Senator Allen, as it is for the rest of us.
There is pain this morning. The loss of good men like Rick Santorum and Chris Chocola hurts. But the good news is that now our party must return to ideas as our key to power. Political sleight of hand and the weakness of our opponents carried us through most of the decade. Indeed, given the remarkable number of close races on the board last night, the Rovian/Mehlman genius came quite close to saving our bacon once again.
At the risk of committing apostasy, last night’s defeat is good not only for our party but more importantly for our ideas and ideals. Those ideas and ideals have for too long taken a backseat to other less noble concerns. New leadership must emerge, leadership that understands our principles, can articulate them, and will not abandon them. A long overdue reckoning must now begin.
Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com
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