Pity Party [Peggy Noonan on the Republican Party]

The Wall Street Journal ^ | May 16, 2008 | Peggy Noonan

[Irish Rose]

Pity Party

Big picture, May 2008:

The Democrats aren't the ones falling apart, the Republicans are. The Democrats can see daylight ahead. For all their fractious fighting, they're finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech. Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing. You see it when you talk to them: They're busy being born.

The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They're frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party. ...

"This was a real wakeup call for us," someone named Robert M. Duncan, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the New York Times. This was after Mississippi. "We can't let the Democrats take our issues." And those issues would be? "We can't let them pretend to be conservatives," he continued. Why not? Republicans pretend to be conservative every day.

The Bush White House, faced with the series of losses from 2005 through '08, has long claimed the problem is Republicans on the Hill and running for office. They have scandals, bad personalities, don't stand for anything. That's why Republicans are losing: because they're losers.

All true enough!

But this week a House Republican said publicly what many say privately, that there is another truth. "Members and pundits . . . fail to understand the deep seated antipathy toward the president, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia in a 20-page memo to House GOP leaders.

[DManA]

The republicans lost the Mississippi election in part because the sunday before the election democrats passed out literature to black churches claiming the republican was a member of the KKK. And not a whimper of protest out of republicans. If reps had done this to a dem candidate it would be the top story for a week and we'd still be hearing about it 10 years from now.

What in the world is the party doing? Are they all drunk?

[pabianice]

Americans continue to live in a state of luxury and individual selfishness that the rest of the world can hardly imagine. $4 gas? 4% of mortgages in foreclosure? Airlines that do not serve you a nice, hot meal? Not enough convenient parking spots at the mall? A 25% federal tax bite? Those mean US Marines in their local recruiting office? Having to pay for after school activities out of your own pocket? These are “hardships” that make the rest of the world laugh. The hard, cold fact is that it will take more devastating attacks upon the U.S. by insane Muslims before the population wakes from its comfy slumber and realizes it has to get tough or die. Only then will the country toss aside Liberalism and get serious.

[Theodore R.]

McPain seems perfectly contented, as I see it, to lose big to Oprah’s Obama. He will be in the Senate to “advise” the new president.

[bill1952]

Excellent article. My Points:

The Democrats aren't the ones falling apart, the Republicans are.
Spot ON.

The Democrats can see daylight ahead.
For all their fractious fighting, they're finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech.
Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing.
You see it when you talk to them: They're busy being born.

Exactly.

>The Republicans? Busy dying.
The brightest of them see no immediate light. They're frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound.
Crunch. Twig. Hunting party. ...

Exactly

"This was a real wakeup call for us," someone named Robert M. Duncan, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the New York Times.
This was after Mississippi. "We can't let the Democrats take our issues." And those issues would be?
"We can't let them pretend to be conservatives," he continued.

Why not? Republicans pretend to be conservative every day.

So exact and spot on, it's frightening!

[babble-on]

You can’t sell leftist policy as a Republican. Leftists want to vote for the real thing, and they will.

I think that's very well stated. The mistake is Rove's in a sense, trying to hang on to power by co-opting lefty issues like the infamous steel tariffs and the prescription drug boondoggle. Let there be two parties, with distinct points of view, and let the VOTERS be the centrists if that's what they want. If one decade the voters decide to make government larger, then Democrats will be elected, if not, Republicans. But as you say, when they want bigger government they're going to elect Democrats anyway, so what good does it do for Republicans to muddy their own water?

[Theodore R.]

You were almost on to something in your last line: The American people are serious — serious about adopting liberalism from the Justice of the Peace to the White House. All they understand is that GWB and the Republicans have failed. Nothing else matters to them.

[alarm rider]

I agree with you.

At this point, there is a brilliant opportunity for a conservative leader, one of core values and of character to rise. I don’t see anyone on the horizon, but maybe someone is out there.

[Uncle Miltie]

This is impossible because the MSM and a third of the people on FR tell us that Juan McNuts is such a fine conservative candidate!

[Hildy]

You are 100% correct and Noonan has hit this one out of the park. I still think McCain will win, and that still doesn’t make me happy one bit. How depressing is that? I put on Rush yesterday because when I’m feeling down, he usually says something to give me hope, I wound up turning him off it was so bad. I feel numb...

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

What does it take to wake up the brain dead. I suppose only a sweeping 75% defeat in November, oh no, it would be just the same old same old, blame the conservative that has the principles to reject the failing leadership of the GOP.

Yup. There's a word for political parties which -- when increasingly confronted by anger and rejection on the part of the electorate -- routinely blame said voters for "not getting it," rather than re-examiming their own product for warts and flaws.

That word is "losers."

[Theodore R.]

The MS debacle would have never occurred if Trent Lott had bowed out in 2006 or stayed put after his 2006 election. I would be unsurprised also to see appointed Senator Wicker lose in the fall. He by the way is some kind of cousin of Fred Thompson’s.

[live+let_live]

“HS is a fraud anyway. It is the DOD, CIA NSA and FBI who will save us from terrorists, not a bunch of highschool dropouts with rubber gloves scaring little girls in airports.”

You couldn’t be more correct. I just got back to the office from dropping my daughter off at the airport. She was so scared/intimidated going through security she was tearing up.

[OKIEDOC]

4) I think that most pundits and members of Congress understand the antipathy towards the war and the president. I really do.

Comment:

Flipping through the channels late last night and hit on PMSNBC and the Dobermanfuer Count Down.

I did not know that Senor Dobermanfuer had a smarter brother named Borat.

Keith Dobermanfuer is what some of you have called a childish A$$CLOWN deluxe.

Shilling for the Democrat party has a way of coming back and biting a person in the butt, don't cha know Senor Dobermanfuer.

[live+let_live]

When a person knows the seat of his trousers is torn open, he doesn’t like it when everyone points it out.

[Blue Turtle]

McCain’s election to lose.

[Hildy]

Don’t you think we, the voters, bear some responsibility for never organizing and making those we vote for responsible for what they do? We watched, and bitched, from the sidelines. We all are part of this problem. And we also have to change the way we do business.

[sarasota]

Thanks you for this moment of clarity.

[JamesP81]

Hung on his own noose

Sometimes, there is justice for bad choices.

[bill1952]

Trent Lott's retirement was a planned event to allow him maximum leverage in getting that cushy K street lobby job that he would not have been allowed to get under the new laws regarding them if he had stayed.

Couple this with his extremely offensive remarks about both the GOP house leaders and then Rush regarding his amnesty positions and it became quite clear that Trent was another K street elitist pinhead, angling for power and money, with no allegiance to the Conservative cause and vision for America.

I didn't know that about Wicker.
Maybe I/we should target him for a contribution - along the lines of supporting individual Congressmen rather than the RNC.
Thank you for your post and for the information. - bill

[JamesP81]

We very much are dealing with what Bush has done IMO.

Yes we are, and the worst is yet to come.

Great tagline, BTW.