Posted by
flagwaver on Tuesday, July 08, 2008 12:03:04 PM
Every now and then the Democrats and liberals get it right, and in a way they have pegged the GOP pefectly. When they describe the GOP as practicing the politics of fear, they are correct to a certain point. They are wrong when they accuse the GOP of trying to use the threat of terrorism as part of the politics of fear, because after decades of terrorist attacks on American interests ( Khobar Towers,
USS Cole, embassy bombings) and the attacks on 9/11 we have finally had to wake up to the very real threat of terror attacks in our lives. But they are right (or would be) to describe the political tactics of the GOP in election season as fear based, if they had the right line on where the fear is directed.
The GOP's politics of fear is not based around terror threats, but on trying to scare their voters into voting against Democratic candidates. The national GOP has basically abandoned trying to convince people to vote for them and has turned their attention to crying wolf about what a Dmocrat would do if elected. This is a foolish endeavor, and a disastrous strategy, but the GOP has decided to wed itself to just such a strategy.
They started it in the 2006 midterm elections by trying to scare the base to convince them of how bad it would be for America if Nancy Pelosi were to become Speaker of the House, and Harry Reid became Senate Majority Leader. According to GOP leadership a Democrat dominated Senate would block all of the President's judicial nominees, would raise taxes, would defund the Iraq War, would set artificial timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, and would waste valuable time and resources attempting to impeach the President. But guess what? The strategy didn't work, because the GOP never gave us a reason to support them! Voters want to know what you are about, not just a litany of what is wrong with the other guy.
Besides, we are nearly two years removed from those 2006 midterms and what has happened? I'll tell you what, not a whole heck of a lot. Reid and Pelosi have proven to be the ineffective hacks we all knew they were, they have abandoned their stated Iraq defunding and withdrawal talk, and they have kept threatening to impeach Bush, but have not been able to gain any traction for the effort. In other words, all of the GOP's dark nightmares about what the left would do when in power have proven to be just that, nightmares and not reality.
Now many in the GOP have trotted out that same line of "reasoning" to scare us first about Hillary Clinton, and now about Barack Obama. To hear them tell it, if we don't vote for John McCain then the Republic will fall as soon as Obama takes the oath of office, the Constitution will no longer carry any weight, and political correctness will rule the land. But honestly, how much different would it be if we elected McCain? He already has a record of disregarding the Constitution when it suits him (McCain-Feingold), he is already trying to enforce PC on us (Republicans are not to say "Hussein" in reference to Obama!), and he is already acting like he is running for Kingship and not President! So what's the difference?
Until the GOP figures out that its voters want to vote for something instead of against something else and starts running candidates that can inspire support from the members of the Party and not just the Party bigwigs, they are going to continue to be losers...even f they win the occasional election. They are building the Party on sand instead of rock, and sooner or later (probably sooner) that foundation is going to fail. And then where will they be?
Lost in the wilderness again.