Before I join in the sport of post-defeat Republican recrimination, allow me to indulge in a rare moment of bipartisanship.
Philosophers and partisans will debate for years the question of whether
Democrats deserved to win the 2006 elections, but let us agree that the
Republicans deserved to lose.
Through its own crapulence, jobbery and malfeasance, the Grand Old Party
lost the House of Representatives, the jewel of the Republican revolution,
the engine of conservative policy reform and home to the much-maligned
freedom fries. The Democrats needed 15 seats to capture the House, and they
passed that mark handily, like a running back carrying the ball through the
end zone, into the bleachers and all the way to the concession stand - and
then ordering a hot dog. Then, twisting the knife and mangling this metaphor
beyond all human decency, the Senate fell into the Dem column like one
enormous hanging chad.
Let's take the Democrats at their word. They wanted this election to be a
referendum on President Bush and the GOP. Despite valiant efforts by the
Republicans to make the election a choice between two parties, the Dems
succeeded in making it thumbs-up or thumbs-down on just one: the GOP.
And so the Republicans were doomed. The cliches are no less true for being
cliches. The GOP came to power in 1994 promising lean government, and became
the party that needs to unbuckle its pants and loosen its belt two notches
after every lobbyist-paid meal. The GOP once had the reputation of being
able to run the government like a business and wars like a finely tuned
machine. But under compassionate conservatism, government became a
faith-based charity.
As for the war(s), the finely tuned machine is clogged with Iraqi sand. The
Democrats think the only solution is to "redeploy" the whole kit and
caboodle out of there for repairs. To Bush's credit, he understands that
wars, particularly this one, need to be won. But, alas, the Democrats won
the argument at the polls.
Now, let's get back to the important business of pointing fingers and
assigning blame. Conservatives have been sharpening their bayonets for
months, waiting to inaugurate the first great intramural bloodletting of the
new millennium. Libertarian types think the fault lies in too much social
conservatism. Social conservatives see too much worldliness. Both see too
much compromise, while moderates, squishes and other RINOs (Republicans in
name only) see too little compromise. Realists and isolationists see too
much war. Neoconservatives and other hawks see, if not too little war,
certainly too little commitment to do everything it takes to win the ones
we're in.
Of all these arguments, the only two you are likely to hear ad nauseam are:
too much social conservatism and too much war.
Why? Because that's the view of the liberal establishment that for 40 years
has been arguing that if only conservatives were more liberal they'd be more
successful, even as the conservative movement has been the most successful
political enterprise of the last half-century.
Philosophically, reasonable people may differ about whether there's been too
much social conservatism, but politically, this is idiotic. As Ramesh
Ponnuru notes in the National Review, Christian conservatives give the GOP
as many votes as labor and blacks combined give to the Democrats. It's to
the Republicans' electoral advantage to take positions that shock the
conscience of Rosie O'Donnell.
It's also true that the Iraq war is unpopular; that's because it's not going
swimmingly. If it were otherwise, Iraq would be a political boon to the GOP.
Now, you might say, "Yeah, and except for the brief unpleasantness, Mrs.
Lincoln had a wonderful time at the theater." But it is not the conservative
position to botch wars. And contrary to the slanderous codswallop you've
heard for the last year, conservative principles do not require flooding New
Orleans. While we're on this point, corruption and cronyism aren't core
planks in the conservative platform either. Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.) lost
his seat because of an alleged personal scandal, but I can assure you
there's nothing in the works of Edmund Burke that says a good conservative
should try to strangle his mistress.
In other words, just as Democrats insisted, the GOP's drubbing had more to
do with competence and scandal than program and ideology.
Indeed, if the conservative base hadn't been disgusted with Republican
management, and if so many Democrats hadn't run as social conservatives, the
GOP might have done just fine in this election.
Republicans lost because they behaved like self-indulgent politicians, not
purists. Conservatives care a lot about ideas, so that's where we'll try to
assign blame. But the ideologues aren't to blame. The Republicans are.