An Overdue Reckoning
Posted by Dean Barnett | 10:02 AM
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.
"The vicious cycle that began with Al Gore in 2000 can be ended. Graciousness can be returned to American politics."
I was with him until here. The dems will in no way permit this to happen. If anything I fully expect them to become more vicious and more partisan. George Allen can concede, he can litigate, he can kiss Jim Webb's big fat Scot-Irish behind, none of it will make a wee bit of difference.
The idea here is sound. I agree 100%.
It can really be reduced to simplicity:
We didn't give them a reason to vote FOR us. We only gave them a reason to vote AGAINST the other side.
That is an argument that rarely works. It is the argument that Kerry's crowd used to try and elect him and it's why he lost. If you have nothing positive to offer and are only telling people 'the other guy sucks more', you're bankrupt and you are going to lose.
We all saw it going in, and we all held our heads up in spite of it, but it wasn't good enough to get the job done.
We need positive, proactive LEADERS who are able to EXPLAIN our positions and our beliefs and FIGHT FOR THEM.
This milquetoast, weak kneed, lilylivered crap isn't going to cut it anymore.
I was with Mr. Barnett until this line. I think he is utterly wrong. President Bush tried the "new tone" approach and it was a disaster. The partisan rancor was largely on the side of the Democrats, who used it to their great advantage. It was not pretty, but it worked.
If the Republicans are to win, they must confront the Democrats. A little partisan rancor over the right issues would do wonders to energize the Republican base.
All this post-mortem about Republicans, but the big thing weu have lost is our position in the world. The enemies are rejoicing because you have given the mid-east away and probably Asia too. We have elected people who want quick solutions to big problems. Hezbollah remembers our allies clinging to the helocopters in Saigon as we abandoned them. Watch for Iraq to cozy up to Iran as they know we cannot be trusted. Pelosi and company love mass genocide and can't wait to unleash on the people who wanted to be free in Iraq and trusted us. Sunni muslims should consider converting to Shia, they are the power in the middle now.
He could have left that out. These guys have always gotten more credit than they deserved. Winning in 2004? Heck, they took a sure thing against an obnoxious moron opponent and almost turned it into a loss.
Have they learned anything? Mehlman's first comments were that the loss now provides an opportunity for bipartisanship by passing the comprehensive immigration reform (amnesty).
Right. I hope nobody plans on using these guys in 2008. Let them move on to their K Street sinecures or become loser talking heads like Begala and Carville and Morris.
Thank you sir, and I certainly agree with you remark about our President not using his bully pulpit more to bolster morale, purpose and recruitment for the war effort. This d****d war ain't over yet! We've got a long way to go, if we pull out, it will follow us here so there's no quick fix, just hard work and lots of it, let's get busy.
Can we please put this canard to bed once and for all? Rove's "genius" hardly looked like that yesterday. It took him until two weeks before the election to figure out that conservatives were unhappy with the party, and by then it was pretty much too late. He as much as anyone is responsible for the muddled party message of the past six years. He should stop admiring McKinley and start admiring Reagan.