Conservatives? What Conservatives?

These are very, very strange political times we’re living in. Make sure that when we’re older we tell our children and grandchildren about the middle of this decade when the ideologies of both parties were going down the drain.

The Democrats have no platform, no new ideas, no leaders and absolutely no clue about what will happen should they gain control of Congress. Their most likely leaders are so far left of the mainstream that their ideas would be considered loopy in what’s left of socialist Europe. And these are the guys that people want to run the country right now.

Why? Because the GOP, once a bedrock of classical conservatism, is even worse. I grew up in the time of Ronald Reagan, who was hailed as a model of the Goldwater small government, Jefferson-style individualist, so perhaps I’m biased. But neither Ronnie nor Barry would recognize the Party today. Read some of these statements from Goldwater to realize how low the GOP has sunk and why Election/Judgment Day cannot come soon enough.

What used to be the national Republican party has sunk to a theocratic bully pulpit that advocates prejudice against homosexuals, a usurpation of the Constitution by the executive branch, an out-of-control deficit spurred by GOP-sponsored pork spreads, laws that suspend habeas corpus for prisoners, etc, etc. I don’t need to go on. Unless you are a religious fanatic or a blind GOP partisan, this party does not represent you and is not worthy of your respect.

How telling that just a decade ago, conservative sages were intellectuals like George Will and William Buckley, who used their intelligence to calmly refute their detractors. Today, hacks like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity spew hateful vitriol at anyone who has the nerve to think differently from them. They have even turned against many of their own party, including many of the Northeastern Republicans who continue to advocate keeping the religion out of government and the government out of your home. Reagan worked hard to bring the suburban moderates into the party – people who just want the government to do basic services, take less of their money in taxes and not give them a hard time if they had to go to Town Hall to apply for a work permit.

David Brooks (another classic conservative who has been called a liberal(!) by these bullies) has it right again – these educated suburbanites go to church and synagogues, but don’t want religion in their government. They read The New York Times and The Washington Post, but for the caliber of writing rather than the ideology. They get their frappuccinos at Starbucks, but understand the coffee chain’s dominance is due to capitalism, marketing and consumer choice instead of exploitation and corporate tax breaks.

How telling that what has finally given the GOP a spring in its step is not Iraq, deficit spending, fixing America’s perception to other countries or even the Taliban resurgence. It is the specter of gay marriage in New Jersey. Again, dogma trumps reason and freedom for the individual in today’s GOP. And don’t forget that whole competence issue I brought up last week.

Six months ago I thought the Republicans could never lose Congress due to the power of incumbency, their fundraising strength and the utter incompetence of the Democrats to offer an alternative. The Democrats are still incompetent, but to America incompetence is better than utter failure. Yes, times are strange today. On November 8, things just may start to look a bit more normal.

More Info: Looks like even big business and the lobbying industry is reading the tea leaves.

Last Legs for the Last Prejudice?

You know things are looking bad for the Republicans when I actually agree with everything Frank Rich said this weekend (subscription required – bleah.) Now don’t get me wrong – I think Rich is the Rush Limbaugh of the Left, although he’s much a better writer. But the points he makes in conjunction with David Kuo’s new book are valid: There are just as many homosexuals in the GOP as anywhere else and they are widely accepted, all of which is completely contradicted by the anti-homosexual platform the GOP espouses to win elections with evangelical backings.

The intolerance isn’t surprising. Homophobia is pretty much the last acceptable cultural prejudice in our society. But the Republicans decided to drum up support with a gay-bashing crusade without checking to see if their own house was in order. True evangelicals are probably feeling dumbfounded and hoodwinked as the air slowly begins to seep out of their self-righteous bubble.

Why am I having flashbacks to Kathie Lee Gifford, who repeatedly placed her perfect marriage and husband on a pedestal only to witness the public delight when her husband was caught cheating on her? It shows how tenuous the so-called moral values issue can be. It also makes the inevitable fall from grace irresistible to the masses who are so aware of their own flaws and secretly seethe at anyone who professes to not only be perfect, but also has the gall to position themselves as an example of what an acceptable lifestyle should be. Would the Democrats do the same cover-up and spinning of a Mark Foley scandal if they were in power? Of course, and they have. But they never ran on a moral values and gay-hating agenda.

The chickens have come home to roost here. Using a demographic group for political gain is nothing new, but I will be very interested in seeing how evangelicals use this information about Mark Foley and David Kuo on Election Day. Hell may have no fury like a Holy Roller scorned.

Some Free Advice for the GOP

As little as three months ago I still believed the Republicans would hold onto the House and Senate because of the three most important factors in midterm elections – incumbency, gerrymandering and fundraising prowess – three items that are never acknowledged by the mainstream until after the fact. I also believed the Republicans would prevail because of the complete vacuum of any new ideas from the Keystone Kops running the Democratic Party. Sure, the Republicans have the wrong ideas, but at least they have ideas.

Now I’m not so sure. It truly is looking like 1994 again – a one-party government featuring an unpopular president with a do-nothing Congress that can’t get anything accomplished without fear of alienating its minority base or shooting itself in the ass. Congressional leadership is barren and Hastert’s cover-up in the Foley scandal has undermined the moral values train that evangelical partisans could always cling to. Imagine their horror at finding homosexuals in the Republican Party! But I digress.

Like Chauncey Gardner in Being There, the Democrats may have just lucked into an opportunity they are neither qualified nor quite ready for. Many of the more open-minded Republicans have announced they are either staying home or holding a protest vote for a Democrat. But they are not voting for Democrats because of their ideals or great leaders, they may be voting Democrat because that’s the only option available. Such a vote is not ironclad and can easily be changed.

I’m not a Republican, but I’m going to give the GOP a little free advice. The blogosphere is amuck with plans to fire Rumsfeld, ramp up troops in Iraq to where they should be, announce a withdrawal plan, kick Hastert to the curb and other big steps to occur after the election, no matter what happens on Election Day. My advice: Why wait?

Nip the Foley scandal in the bud by letting Hastert step down as majority leader but keep his seat. Announce a plan for Rumsfeld to step down at the end of 2006. Have the next Defense Secretary announce a withdrawal plan to bring troops home in the next year or two. Do one or all of these things now, and you control the agenda again and sap the opposition of any ammunition.

After all, it’s not like the Democrats have proposed anything of their own. Why let them walk over you? Call their bluff. It’s so crazy it just might work.

The Competence Question

Some people are to-the-death Democrats who will vote for any Democratic candidate from Marion Barry to Ted Kennedy. Others are die-hard Republicans who have no problem pulling the lever for someone like Mark Foley or Tom DeLay just because they’re Republican. This naïve and blind faith is almost quaint to me. These otherwise rational people would agree that unquestioning devotion to just about anything would be dangerous in any other fashion, but not politics or ideology.

To the rest of us, including many who don’t follow public affairs as passionately as I do, politics comes down to a matter of competence mixed with your personal and cultural mores and ethics. For me, it can come down to intelligence. Who’s the smarter candidate? Which empirical, not ideological, argument makes the most sense? I can’t work for anyone dumber than me, so I wouldn’t want to vote for someone who’s dumber either.

But as we approach the 2006 elections, competence is up for the public to decide. Republicans have been in charge for six years – long enough to develop a track record. And for me, the past six years have been marked by a steady decline in competence and a startling rise in mismanagement, buck passing and decisions that have true nonpartisans wondering when the real conservatives left the Republican Party.

If you take a pure, non-partisan, competence-only look at what the Republicans have presided over during the last six years, you find a downward spiral of incompetence and incomplete efforts that leave you wondering who’s steering the ship. Of course, Iraq has deteriorated into a civil war that could have been easily prevented with some forward thinking and the equivalent of a Marshall Plan. Every week another book comes out or military leader comes forward that emphasizes the administration’s incompetence. This is especially painful for me because people are dying and I strongly supported the decision to go to war because a democratic Iraq would be the best anti-fundamentalist medicine you could have. With the exception of Saddam Hussein’s capture and trial, we have the opposite – an anarchic Iraq that could drag additional countries into a larger conflict. This is completely preventable incompetence of the highest order, and Donald Rumsfeld, the man in charge of this, is still employed.

Afghanistan is not much better. Last week’s Newsweek story seriously depressed me. The advice they give to “stay the course” in these conflicts again belies incompetence – look at where this course has brought us! If anything, now is the chance to change and possibly get things right! If the Republicans want to make the war on terror the centerpiece of their campaign, then the voters need to assess how competently they have waged this war.

I’ll weigh in with thoughts on various other issues over the next few weeks, but Republicans everywhere should be assessing the competence of their leaders. Are you satisfied with the way the leaders have dealt with other critical issues, like Mark Foley, finding new sources of energy so we don’t help rogue states like Venezuela and Iran by buying their oil? When you look at conservative canards like smaller government, less spending and limits on executive power, has the party served you well? Is this the best the Party can do? Does their track record earn them another two years in power? And finally, if they were not Republicans, how would they vote?