May 14, 2008

Erick Erickson : Going Old Testament on the GOP

Posted at RedState:

We here at RedState knew when the GOP had its leadership elections after the 2006 debacle that we would wind up here.

We knew Tom Cole would be ineffective at the NRCC. Heck, all you had to do was look at the GOP primary against Tom Coburn for the U.S. Senate to see how well Cole would do.

We knew John Boehner and Roy Blunt would be incapable of launching necessary institutional reforms in the House GOP. No offense to John Boehner or Roy Blunt, but they don't exactly represent "change" like the voters, and the GOP base, strongly indicated they wanted after 2006.

We knew that this November would wipe out a lot of bodies and a lot of the caucus would retire before getting there.

This was as foreseeable as the sun rising in the east.

I agree nearly 100% with Erick, except for one very minor point. It seems to be conventional wisdom that there is this "second midterm curse" that plagues the party holding the White House, such that they invariably lose legislative seats in the second midterm elections. Although elections prior to 30 years ago seems to support the idea of "the curse," electoral history over the last 30 years doesn't follow the pattern. (Like I said, minor point.)

By Ragnar Danneskjold, Typical Bitter Gun-Clinger at 05:47 PM | |