Foresaking their first love - Why the GOP Lost the Congress

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. Rev. 2:4-5

Eight years ago I sat in a small room on a Wednesday morning at the Cobb County Galleria Center having breakfast. The was nothing extraordinary about the breakfast; scrambled eggs, bacon, fruit. What was extraordinary were my breakfast companions that morning; House Speaker Newt Gingrich and senior advisor Joe Gaylord.

These two men had planned the Contract With America GOP Revolution in 1994 and were expecting another GOP tsunami in 1998 as President William Jefferson Clinton was teetering on the edge of impeachment. The polls showed them winning fifteen seats. In the end, the Democrats picked up five.

Shortly after breakfast, I waited in the back of the room as Newt stood in front of a backdrop emblazoned with “America’s Victory” and gave his post-election morning press conference. He was asked by CNN’s Bob Franklin who the Republicans should blame for the disappointing results. Newt’s response was suicide. He said they should blame him.

Early on in 2006, I started to feel a cold chill creeping into my bones. It was all too familiar. Although, even after eight years, I’ve only managed to reach the age of 30, I got so used to that feeling in 1998 that I recognized it immediately when it came back this year.

I started at Friends of Newt Gingrich, the Speaker’s campaign office, in February of 1998. It had been barely three weeks since the world had learned the name “Monica Lewinsky.” Over the next nine months, that name would become burned into our minds with the constant drumbeat of investigations, punditry and political speeches. Congress came to a standstill, obsessed with Lewinsky. All the while, I heard constant complaints of higher government spending, more earmarks and pork barrel, lack of action on taxes and Social Security reform, and other key issues that GOP voters held dear and expected their elected Representatives to address. The base felt the ideals of the 1994 Revolution were dead and the Gingrich Congress was just going along to get along, convinced Lewinsky would carry the day.

The Gingrich lead Congress had lost its first love, and the voters held them to account.

This year, the signs were there early, and we knew it, but for whatever reason, our leadership did nothing about it. The based cried out for immigration reform, tax reform, and a leaner, smaller government. What the Republican base got was inaction on immigration, stalling on tax cuts, a bloated new Medicare program, and an even more bloated budget with the kind of pork that we once railed against the Democrats for earmarking, scandals, lobbyists, corruption, and finally, Mark Foley.

The President and Karl Rove mistakenly believed that the War on Terror would carry the day, and the President and Congress could ignore the base’s pleading for a new direction. They were wrong. They too had lost their first love.

After the 1998 elections, Newt blamed the media for talking about nothing but Lewinsky and scandal, even though earlier in the year, he had pledged to talk about nothing but the scandals until Election Day.

Likewise, Bush dictated that Iraq would be the issue that was to carry the day. “Cut and Run” became the mantra of the GOP, and even a late slam against our soldiers by John Kerry could not stem the tide of discontent Republicans who wanted to talk about immigration and taxes and reducing the size of government.

In 2006, the Republican lampstand was finally removed. We lost the trust to govern because we squandered the opportunity to govern.

But the silver lining is already here. While the GOP many have to wander in the wilderness of minority for two years, the era of Speaker Pelosi will provide our party a golden opportunity to get back to its core roots. The Gingrich Revolution was built on the promotion of the core concepts of the party backed by a realization by the voters of the true nature of the Democrat concept of governing. After twelve years of Reagan-Bush, Republicans forgot what Americans expected out of the party and Americans forgot about what they could expect out of Democrat Presidents. If another champion of conservatism is able to find a voice within the Republican Party, there is a good chance that the base will be brought back and enthusiastically support our candidates, especially after two years of San Francisco style liberalism.

If the Democrats look at their slim majority as a greater mandate for their liberal agenda, they will sow the seeds of their own demise. Americans are neither ready nor willing to accept the true Democrat agenda; Americans just did not trust the current incarnation of the GOP to govern. They long ago realized that the Republicans had forsaken their first love. It’s a pity the Republican leadership did not. Jason Shepherd, a former campaign aide to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is the current State Chairman of the Georgia Federation of Young Republican Clubs. Shepherd lives in Kennesaw, Ga with his wife, Manuela. He can be reached at Chairman@GeorgiaYR.org.

"This year, the signs were there early, and we knew it, but for whatever reason, our leadership did nothing about it."

'bout sums it up...

I and a few other local Precinct Chairs chose to "slightly" question, with the intent to energize a little different direction with the process we were trying to accomplish in CD22 and the Tom DeLay situation...

Our intent was not to disrespect the desire or direction "they" wished to lead us into...

But after we saw the results, and the further erroding of the process (we followed the law and election code on the books at the time) and the failure to get a "front-runner" in place and ready to become a common name in the conservative voting block in our district...

We were left with basically nothing...We had to have a debacle of a meeting, that was further cast into oblivion by the media as "secret" (which it was not), a 3rd of the PC's (mostly from Fort Bend County, some were there, I saw them) didn't bother to show up, at the behest of some sour grapes from a particular candidate seeking this nomination...

And we had to make a decision, and work this issue from a write-in contingency plan...

So we were dealt a hand that was going to be an extremely hard challenge in the time we had left before Tuesday November 7th, 2006 to get this done...

And after some of the things I saw that day, I was impressed with some of the numbers I saw on the special election, but when it came time to get it done for the general portion of the ballot...

I think "stupid" took over...If 62% went to the "write in" in the "special election, what happened to the 62% when you clicked to the next page???

If my harsh tone took over in that last statement, I'm not sure I'll apologize at this time...I'll think about it...But after I saw a couple of people, and my Democrat counterpart saw this too, vote for a candidate in the special election, and then in the write in in the general election write in "MICKEY MOUSE" and "BATMAN"...

I have to honestly question this...

We stood aside for a moment Tuesday out of earshot of anyone, and he told me that he didn't want his guy to win that seat like this...

My Democrat counterpart has been a nieghbor of mine for 35 years, he's known me since I was a kid who would come over and dig up in his flowerbeds with his son, to play with our Tonka trucks...We both have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for the election process in our Precinct...

Our politics and philosophy may be diametrically opposed in certain areas, but I'll tell you, if both of us were elected officials in Austin or D.C., He and I both could guarantee you things would get done, and everyone would be happy...

That type of working relationship in politics is very unlikely in this day and age...And with folks voting the way they do...And they are certainly entitled to do it whatever way they want to...I am certainly not at this stage going to be taking my toys out of the sandbox, and running away...

Maybe its time to not think about who's in the sandbox playing for us up there...Maybe its time to tighten that sandbox, and make it a bit uncomfortable for "anyone" playing in it...We can do that from our level...Its a message that can be started and pounded into our "County Party Chairs" and driven to those up the chain, that you guys better get your acts together, and stop belittle-ing the base...

Otherwise this can happen to any political party...

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