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.