More Monday Morning Quarterbacking

Here's an eerie coincidence: The “Permanent Majority” envisioned by the GOP (as strategized by Karl Rove, President Bush and minions) lasted exactly as long as the 1000 Year Third Reich: 12 years.

With all the recriminations and soul-searching going on within the GOP, here is an objective outsider’s view of where the GOP has gone wrong:

One of the cornerstones of classic conservativism is small, limited government. It’s ironic then that this Administration, with the support of a Republican-controlled Congress, squandered a record surplus left to them by the previous Democratic administration, produced record deficits, and turned out to be the highest-spending administration of all time.

What happened?

As the minority party, it’s easy to say you are against spending. But once you are in power and have greater control of the purse strings, it takes great discipline and self-control to put your money where your mouth is. Obviously, the GOP failed to live up to its own principles and fell prey to the temptations of power, showing that they too could be profligate spenders when given the keys to the coffers.

In addition, the Republicans have been taken hostage by a minority fringe that is too far right and out of step with the rest of the country. Admittedly, this minority fringe exercises power by voting in high numbers, making noise on the issues that are important to them and contributing money. Ultimately, however, as a voting block, they are not sufficient enough in size by themselves to put national candidates over the top and can only succeed by creating coalitions with other groups, often using fear, hate and divisiveness to carve up the opposition.

As issues more important to the rest of the electorate emerged during this election cycle (such as the economy), these coalitions collapsed and exposed the rhetoric of the far right as devoid of positive ideas and thinking, and full of nothing but negativity. There exists in the far right a seething anger and resentment (evident even when they are in power) that really showed its teeth during the election through its nasty race-tinged smears of the opposition, and which showed a true contempt for the rest of America. While they give lip service to “Country first!”, it’s clear they mean “Ideology/Christian values first.” Which is ironic and unseemly given the intolerance and hate that emanates from this fringe wing of the party.

Amazingly, the response of much of the right has been that they failed because didn’t veer rightward enough! Talk about out of touch! On the one hand, I would love to egg them on knowing that such a scorched-earth policy approach will only serve to push them further to the fringes. On the other, I find it disconcerting knowing that they will work to field even more far right candidates. I truly believe such candidates—as epitomized by the woefully ignorant, superficial and callow Sarah Palin—represent a real danger to the security and future of this country, and don't want them anywhere near a stone's throw of real positions of power.

Predictably, rather than working on new ideas, the far right is counting on the new President and his Democratic-controlled Congress to “overreach” by going too far to the left.

Fortunately, I think the President-Elect, who is a student of history, a pragmatist, and a consensus builder, will avoid that. Even the Democrats (including Speaker of the House and liberal stalwart Nancy Pelosi), who remember the humiliating losses of 1994, seem to understand that moving to the far left immediately out of the gate would be playing into the GOP’s hands.

I’m a pragmatist myself, not an ideologue. Hopefully, the Democrats will be disciplined and patient, and look at ensuring Obama’s chances for re-election in 2012. As any student of presidential history knows, it’s the second term when Presidents have more leeway to pursue bigger issues that require harder decisions since they no longer have to worry about re-election.