11.02.2008

How bad has life become for the GOP?

David Michael Green nicely sums up the situation:

The regressive movement — so deluded that they still like to think of themselves as conservatives — is on death watch now, and yet it doesn't know it, nor does it remotely begin to understand why. But the reasons — both proximate and distant — are plain enough to see. The immediate problem is that they ran a pathetic candidate against a great candidate. More importantly, they ran a slimy, Rovian campaign against a guy who knew how to fight back, and also had the guts to do so, and they presented it all to a national electorate that is frightened enough to no longer be willing to indulge foolery anymore. The proof of this is that John McCain might actually have the best night of any Republican candidate on Tuesday, as Democrats massively increase their majorities in both the House and the Senate, perhaps even gaining a filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority, perhaps even giving Senate Minority Leader and major scuzzbucket Mitch McConnnell (from Kentucky no less!) his walking papers. And, as if that weren't proof enough, this comes after a similar blow-out in 2006, when the GOP got a "thumpin'", and lost control of both houses of Congress. And, to top it all off, voters don't even particularly like Democrats, and they sure don't like the current Congress, which is controlled by Democrats. It's rare for an American political party to get stomped two elections in a row, let alone by a generally disliked alternative party. You have to be screwing up really badly to do that, in a collective effort sort of way [emphasis added].

Indeed, the Democratic Party, like the Republican Party in 1980, will benefit greatly from the American party system's democracy deficit. Its democracy deficit: America necessarily lacks an electorally viable party opposed to its party duopoly. This lack must exist because the institutional mechanisms are in place which ensure that it will exist.

No comments: