November 08, 2006

What This All Means

You should have every expectation that the MSM and the Dems will try to spin this election as a rejection of "right-wing conservatism" and an embrace of "left-wing liberalism." I'm here to tell ya, folks: whatever this election meant, it DIDN'T mean that--at least, not in the way the MSM and the Dems will mean it when they say it. It didn't, for example, mean a rejection of a limited government or fiscal responsibility. It didn't represent a public embrace of socialism, and it certainly wasn't a referendum on whether we should continue to help the Iraqi people.

I went to a GOP "victory" party last night, and just everyone I talked to fell into one of two groups. The first group (the faithful) was depressed that the pre-election polls were actually on-target. The second group (the disgruntled) had long since resigned themselves to substantial Republican losses and had mixed feelings about those losses. In general, it was either "I can't believe this is really happening" or "Maybe they need to learn a lesson." Even at a collection of the faithful, it wasn't tough at all to find Republicans who'd been disgusted with their own party for years--and weren't at all too shy to talk about it.

You may BE one of the disgruntled Republicans, or you may HATE them, or you may be in the middle. For those of you who hate them, you can hate them all you want. You can think they're assholes, or that they're insane, or that they're high-maintenance bitches. None of that really matters. What matters is that they represent a huge chunk of the Republican base. If the GOP doesn't figure out how to bring these folks back into the GOP fold and give them some candidates to believe in, 2008 will look very ugly.

If you don't know what the lesson to be learned from November 7, 2006 is, it is this: a party can't disregard the interests and concerns of an entire chunk of its own base without paying a heavy price.

By Ragnar Danneskjold, Typical Bitter Gun-Clinger at 12:34 PM | |