Legal Commentary

It Was The Result, Not The GOP Politics that Did Them In

By Big Tent Democrat

I wish Matt Yglesias would start writing more about this point (he has made it well and repeatedly), because a false meme is beginning to gain traction among Democrats - to wit, that the GOP lost because of their politics, not their results of their policies. Here are two examples of that faulty thinking. First, my friend Ed Kilgore:

[w]e now have the clear example before us of the failure of a GOP strategy that so very recently looked compelling and perhaps invincible, based on a political map of the country that proved to be no more permanent than, I suspect, the one we see today.

This is just wrong. Republican politics failed because Republican policies failed. Similarly, Nate Silver argues the GOP lost the art of persuasion. This is also wrong. Look, Bill Clinton explained it in simple terms:

[O]n the two great questions of this election, how to rebuild the American Dream and how to restore America's leadership in the world, he still embraces the extreme philosophy which has defined his party for more than 25 years, a philosophy we never had a real chance to see in action until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and Congress. Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades were implemented.

They took us from record surpluses to an exploding national debt; from over 22 million new jobs down to 5 million; from an increase in working family incomes of $7,500 to a decline of more than $2,000; from almost 8 million Americans moving out of poverty to more than 5 and a half million falling into poverty - and millions more losing their health insurance.

Now, in spite of all the evidence, their candidate is promising more of the same: More tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that will swell the deficit, increase inequality, and weaken the economy. More band-aids for health care that will enrich insurance companies, impoverish families and increase the number of uninsured. More going it alone in the world, instead of building the shared responsibilities and shared opportunities necessary to advance our security and restore our influence.

They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more. Let's send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America: Thanks, but no thanks. In this case, the third time is not the charm.

Republicans lost the last two elections because their policies stink. All this talk about Center-Right, and Talk Radio, and movements and the rest of it is nice and all but it ignores the elephant in the room - Republican rule of this nation has led us to calamity. That is why they have been losing elections.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on November 23, 2008 (boomark / email).