I can think of no worse a party-dividing issue and majority-killer as that of America's immigration policy, and President Bush's widely perceived "back-door amnesty" for some 11 million illegal aliens in the country today. Discussions on immigration today are akin to discussions on Social Security 20 years ago: Say the wrong thing, and you may experience the fatal effects of the new "third rail" of politics.Basically though, there is the expectation of "To the victor go the spoils" that most people are fuming over. Republicans have not had this firm a grip on Washington for over 75 years. The country has gone through a mini-realignment of sorts since the GOP captured the House in 1994. The electorate is decidedly more traditional and conservative in its social demeanor.
So it is hard to come to grips with the fact that the Republican Party--from the president on down--has behaved like a majority-in-denial, content to be acknowledged as the premiere power in Washington, but lacking the iron-will and killer instinct of latter-day Democratic majorities that dominated the American political scene for decades.
What do Republicans in Washington say to the millions who volunteered for the Bush/Cheney 2004 election, giving up their days and nights to go door-to-door and make tens of millions of "get to the polls" phone calls, while donating unprecedented millions to the campaign?
Would they say "Well, we tried, but we were cowed into submission by the op-ed pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post"?
Or would they say that the opposition was "Just too tough to overcome, so we decided to moderate our views instead of fighting upon the mandate given us by the voters"?
Republican political palsy and its effect on the party rank and file are as yet unknown. While some are monolithic in their support for a Republican majority in government, others are becoming increasingly alienated with the party's lack of backbone and its political dithering on core issues. By the 2006 midterm elections, things will be clearer, and Republicans may regret their inactions upon these very core issues.
Last November, 122 million people voted or 60.7% of the voting-age public. That is the highest percentage since 1968. Out of this, some 62 million-plus voted for a Republican president, and increased his majorities in both houses of Congress to work with.
If Republicans do not set their sights on what these millions of voters sent them there to do, they will feel the beginnings of their wrath in 2006, and experience the full measure of it in 2008. A warning to the majority party in Washington: Put up or get put out.
If Republicans do not set their sights on what these millions of voters sent them there to do, they will feel the beginnings of their wrath in 2006, and experience the full measure of it in 2008. A warning to the majority party in Washington: Put up or get put out.
I read it. And this isn't the solution to the problem....electing democrats. I still am a firm Republican and I still back the President. We put him in office to work for us. True. But we have to continue to hold them to account. Where are all those voters who voted for Bush last year? They should still be busy writing and calling their leaders, the President to make sure that they hear us. I don't want special interests deciding what is best for me. And they are getting the upper hand, we are letting them.