Thursday, November 12, 2009
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. One year ago, the media were fanatically sounding the death knell for the Republican Party. The rising minority and youth vote were supposed to bury the party for years to come. One book even declared “The Death of Conservativism.”
The celebration didn’t last long. This year, the Republicans took back Virginia with a vengeance and upset the incumbent governor in the dark-blue state of New Jersey.
President Barack Obama carried Virginia by six percentage points in 2008 and this year the Republican gubernatorial candidate won by 17. Obama carried New Jersey by 16 points and this year the Republican won by four. That is an astounding 23- and 19-point swing respectively — and all in only one year. No matter how you spin it, that’s bad news for Democrats.
The mainstream media have always been excited about the idea of a rift from within the Republican Party. On a tough night for Democrats, this manufactured story became big news. It centered on the upstate New York congressional race where the Republican candidate was forced to drop out of the race due to extraordinary opposition from leading Republicans.
When major national GOP figures clamored to endorse the Conservative Party candidate over the Republican, it was said that the Republican Party no longer accepted moderates. Suspicions of a battle between the moderate-wing and the right-wing of the party seemed to ring true. But in reality, what happened in this race was a sign of unity, not division.
Because it was a special election, there was no primary process. Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate, would have never won a Republican primary. The reason Scozzafava was attacked by Republicans is not because of her stance on any one issue. She was pro-choice, for card-check, for higher taxes, received financial support from labor unions and had close ties with ACORN. It is because she embodied all of these characteristics at once that she was attacked by Republicans.
If you find that argument unpersuasive, all you need to know is that after dropping out of the race she endorsed the Democratic candidate. Enough said.
So how does anybody reach the conclusion that Republicans attacking Scozzafava is a sign of division from within the Republican Party? The idea that Republicans refused to endorse her simply because she has an “R” next to her name shows courage, discipline and unity of purpose.
Aside from the bizarre special election in New York, the similarities between events leading to the Republican Revolution of 1994 and now are striking. In 1994, Republicans picked up 54 seats in the House and 8 seats in the Senate. These sweeping victories put the GOP in the majority in both houses of Congress.
Virginia and New Jersey showed the limits of Obama’s influence. It remains to be seen whether congressional Democrats will be able to show enough humility to vote against the highly unpopular government takeover of health care. To do anything different is to repudiate the lessons of history. That’s the right idea.
— Compton is a Wichita senior in political science.
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Comments
Compton: Republicans gain momentum with recent wins
Just a few things: I'm not sure I buy the idea that elections for state offices have any bearing on national elections that are 1-3 years away. I mean, just look at Kansas. We've had two successive Democratic governors, and the current one would have a pretty good shot at re-election if he would jump in the race. New York has had its fair share Republican governors, and Republican mayors of NYC, yet consistently votes Democrat in national elections. To me, there are too many counter-examples for you to declare that state elections are somehow bellweather for the 2010 or 2012 national elections. As for your comments about New York 23, I don't think you can claim it as a "sign of unity," not for the voters anyway. The entrance of Doug Hoffman into the race caused what was normally a safe Republican district to elect a Democrat. I think that might repudiate your claim just a bit. Also, "leading Republicans"? Considering the leadership crisis the Republican Party is in right now, I'm not sure you could make the claim that Sarah Palin (Of whom public opinion is at an all-time low, 11 percent.) or Rush Limbaugh are the leading Republicans. Now, they might be the loudest voices fighting for ideological control of the party, but the public as a whole isn't behind their message. You didn't see real, principled Republicans like Lindsey Graham or Charlie Crist supporting Hoffman. One final thing: "highly unpopular government takeover of health care?" Unpopular with who, you? The latest poll from NBC News and The Wall Street Journal had about 70 percent of those polled supporting a public option for health care. I suppose it might seem unpopular if your looking at Sean Hannity's faked footage of a Tea Party rally. (That I'm not making up, just go look for yourself. He stole it from reels of Glenn Beck's 9/12 rally.)
Compton: Republicans gain momentum with recent wins
Also, just fact-checking a bit. The book "The Death of Conservativism," by Sam Tannenhaus, just came out, and it's actually a fairly non-partisan intellectual history of the conservative movement. And I think you might just be using the words "fanatically" and "death knell" to make the abstract "media" sound sinister. Let's not forget that Fox probably wasn't sounding that death knell, nor were any of the Clear Channel-owned radio networks. Nor the Wall Street Journal editorial page, either.
Compton: Republicans gain momentum with recent wins
Is this some sort of joke? It's like the SNL skit from this past weekend in print. What a crock.
Also, the Bush Admin said that Gubernatorial and other races that did not re-elect a Republican candidate were "localized" elections that dealt with local issues. So, based on Virgina's leaning-right stance and proposed tax increase, and New Jersey's tax exhausted voters, I would imagine that this was indeed an election based on local issues.
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