Posted on 11/09/2006 12:51:47 AM PST by neverdem
With one Republican bastion after another falling as returns poured in for Democrats Tuesday night, the GOP's carefully constructed defenses crumbled. The party's barriers failed to prevent the election from being a referendum on Iraq, George W. Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress. It was a failure of concept as well as execution.
That failed concept relied on friendly, familiar Republican incumbents, who had delivered government pork for their district, negating intense voter hostility by using the party's time-tested machinery to get out its vote. These tactics proved useless in the face of a wave that was not so much pro-Democrat as it was anti-Republican. Only gerrymandered House districts prevented a landslide that would have given the Democrats a House majority of historic proportions, approaching 50 seats.
The apparent Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress left Republicans stunned and divided, unable to comprehend that the nation's political realignment creating a GOP majority had crested and reversed. The confidence that relied on generously funded Election Day organization now looks like mindless arrogance. The party's cocksure political mechanics simply could not believe the outcome as the results poured in.
Even up to the last minute, the Republicans never really saw overall defeat coming. Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina used a golfer's language in telling me last July that his colleagues failed to appreciate how close the Republicans were to losing control of the Senate: "It's like we think we'll get by with pars on the last two holes when we really need birdies," he said then. On Wednesday, Graham told me: "Actually, we bogeyed the 17th hole and picked up on the 18th."
Republican leaders are still in denial in the wake of their crushing defeat. They blame individual losing candidates for failing to prepare themselves for the election. In contrast, the private reaction by the candidates was anger at President Bush and his political team. That includes a rising GOP undercurrent against Iraq policy. The unpleasant truth is that Republicans lost almost everywhere the president campaigned during the past week. An exception was Florida, where State Attorney General Charlie Crist kept out of Bush's way and won the election for governor.
The bellwether of defeats to come was the Louisville, Ky., district where the respected Rep. Anne Northup, who won 60 percent of the vote two years ago, was defeated for a sixth term. There was nothing she had done wrong or that her opponent had done right to cause her defeat. The same was true of other highly regarded Republican congressional veterans who were defeated Tuesday, headed by Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, Clay Shaw of Florida and Jim Leach of Iowa.
Exit polls confirmed what had been clear to anyone who spent any time on the campaign circuit this year. Opposition to the war and the president had produced a virulent anti-Republican mood. About two weeks before the election, political technicians running the campaign of Rep. Charles Bass in New Hampshire suddenly realized that the popular six-termer was in deep trouble. His moderate voting and record of pork-delivery (including a federal prison for his district) meant nothing. He was swept under by the anti-Iraq voting tide.
Bass at least had some warning. New Hampshire's other House member, Rep. Jeb Bradley, won with 63 percent of the vote in 2004 and never felt threatened this year until the results came in. This was a nationalized election about Iraq where individual characteristics did not count.
Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona, a stalwart of the famous Republican class of '94, did not seem seriously endangered until word came back to Washington election morning that he looked like a loser. Representing a district that is not as Republican as it used to be, Hayworth had become an enforcement-only immigration hard-liner. It did not help him at the polls.
Sen. John McCain, the putative front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, reacted to defeat with the typically blunt comment that his party had lost its way with earmarked pork barrel spending. If party leaders in Congress at long last heed McCain's counsel, it would mark the beginning of wisdom.
Robert Novak is syndicated columnists and editor of the Evans-Novak Political Report
What lost the election was Republicans that acted like Democrats instead of the Conservative Republicans that had been elected.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Assclown Novak kept Rove twisting in the wind over Plame. I don't care what he has to say. He can go to hell.
while a few conservative stalwarts for the republicans were swept out with the tide, a lot of moderates were as well.
a silver lining if there ever was one, imo.
On to '08 and a re-energized gop effort and new leadership to lead the way.
The rub? Now all we need to do is identify those most capable to lead the way...
Novak AND mcCain can go to hell. Turncoat backstabbing assclowns.
one possibility for the RNC head.. from HotAir.com per the WaPo
Steele as RNC chair?
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/11/08/steele-as-rnc-chair/
last post of the night
BumP
FoR
Novak AND mcCain can go to hell. Turncoat backstabbing assclowns.
ditto
We are in 100% agreement on that.
I'm right there with you. That would be the last straw.
"What lost the election was Republicans that acted like Democrats instead of the Conservative Republicans that had been elected."
No!
What lost the election was Republicans were never on the defense or offense!
They never responded to any of the lies and accusations of the DemocRats:
GOP - The party of corruption (Culture of corruption)!
If you tell a mantra (lie) long enough - people will believe it!
THAT inability to speak up cost the GOP -
And will cost us again in '08 unless the Republican leaders begin to act like warriors instead of wimps!
ditto!
I'm putting out the name Mark Sanford for POTUS to see what Freepers think of him. So far I've gotten positive feedback except some think he is an unknown. He just won re-election in SC as Governor so he's had some recent media attention though he'd need much more to win the nomination. He has also said he's not interested in a run for the WH yet but if the support is there you never know.
http://www.petitiononline.com/msan2008/petition.html
An unknown may be just what we need right now. Someone that the American electorate sees as a fresh face. Far from the corruption and party politics and ready to lead on conservative principles.
If you know anything more about him please share. ^_^
The problem with this is in order to act like a warrior you must first be a warrior.
You cant be a Reagan Conservative unless you hold very deep rooted conservative principles in your heart. You must always do the right thing because it is right, you must hold the constitution dearly, believe liberty is worth dying for.
All of our elected official take the same oath of office as our military officers and soldiers, yet while our soldiers know when asked to perform their oath they may surely die, our elected officials have no such commitment.
We need to elect statesmen/women who cherish our freedoms and way of life and are willing to fight for it, not be happy to have their name on the door and hold rallies.
Doesn't Novak have something to do in the old country? Maybe he should go back to the Balkans and write some conspiracy tales there.
Rick Santorum holds his conservative principles deeply, he's a warrior, and he lost.
You guys are right. Now we need to finish the job by getting rid of the rest of the rinos.
IN 2008, we need to get rid of Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, Warner, Lamar Alexander, Libby Dole, Smith from Oregon, that bridge to nowhere Stevens guy, Chuck Hagel, and Sununu, Domenici and McConnell can take a hike too.
Well, that didn't help, but I think there was a stronger force at work.
The MSM ran a campaign of personal destruction against everyone associated with the Iraq policy, and against the policy itself.
A year ago, I got a circulated e-mail about the WaPo's Baghdad correspondent who was running around Iraq writing jeremiads about how badly things were going. The e-mail was written by an Army man who was in one of the areas this guy had visited, who was moved by what he saw and what the WaPo man had written, to call BS on the WaPo story. It just wasn't like that at all, the e-mail writer said.
Fast forward to last night, and guess who showed up on PBS but that selfsame writer, laying down his same patter about how the war was lost from the git-go, and blah, blah, blah -- pure black propaganda written to poison public opinion.
I think we need to wander over to Brent Bozell's MRC and see what he's had to say about all this. Bozell predicted the 'Rat Media assault on Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America in 1995/6 that was the 'Rat Media's lead-in to ensuring DIRTXPOTUS's reelection.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.