Doomsayers always appear when one of the two major political parties suffers an epic electoral disaster. It happened to the Republicans after the Goldwater and Nixon debacles in 1964 and 1974, and to the Democrats following the Contract with America insurgency in 1994. Obviously, both parties came back strongly from those defeats.
But there are three factors that may make it different today with the GOP. This terrible trio could render obsolete the conventional wisdom that no new third party can displace the Democrats or Republicans. The trio includes earmarks, George W. Bush and the Internet.
It is a cruel irony that the party traditionally most closely associated with fiscal discipline would become the party of earmarks, those until-recently anonymous legislative bon-bons that enabled senators and representatives to direct federal tax dollars to friends, family members, formerstaff members and campaign donors without fear of accountability.
Leading GOP congressional figures thought they could buy K Street loyalty and a permanent Republican congressional majority with earmarks. Some of those folks now reside in federal housing not of their choice and others may soon be assigned cell numbers as well.
Thanks to Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens‘ “Bridge to Nowhere” and the greed of other GOPers in Congress who slurped up thousands more earmarks between 1996 and 2006, Ronald Reagan‘s tax cutting party became the corrupt party of the “favor factory.” Voters rightfully threw them out on their ears in 2006. Many of the surviving Republicans still don’t understand why.
Then there’s Bush. Maybe things would have been different had 9/11 and Iraq never happened. Maybe Bush would have cracked the whip on the Republicans’ congressional spending binge and reinvigorated the Reagan Revolution.
Given how quickly Bush folded on school vouchers months before Osama Bin Laden‘s terrorists struck, however, I doubt it. Bush never vetoed a spending bill from the GOP majority. He even joined in the fun with the prescription drug benefit, the biggest expansion in entitlement spending since 1965.
So, the GOP had congressional majorities for a dozen years and controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue for the last six. The last time an American leader squandered such an historic opportunity? Meade letting Lee get safely back to Virginia in the bloody aftermath of Gettysburg.
Finally, there is the Internet, which is leveling legacy institutions right and left. What has or is happening to Dan Rather, newspapers, popular music and a host of other industries and professions is bound to happen to the two major political parties, too.
At a minimum, the Internet is already forcing fundamental changes in campaign strategies and processes, as seen in Barack Obama‘s online fund-raising prowess and his remarkable ability to attract, organize and quickly deploy millions of volunteers. Hillary Clinton probably never really had a chance. But that’s just the beginning.
The political class only dimly realizes that everybody can talk to everybody right now, all over the country, so immensely powerful groups can coalesce at cyber-speed, via Web 2.0 social networking tools (see Clay Shirky‘s “Here Comes Everybody”). So, the tools exist to focus and direct the deep disgust of the GOP’s conservative base with the party, yet few Republican potentates seem to know it.
There is smoke. As the ever-perceptive Robert Novak reported, a California GOP grassroots group, for example, recently posted a manifesto, “We refuse to support a permanent minority,” and an online petition demanding new leadership:
“From energy, health care, and education to the Republican hallmarks of lower taxes, less bureaucracy, and fiscal responsibility, the Republican leadership in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have failed us… and failed America. Come this November, regardless of who prevails in the election as next president, it is incumbent upon all Republicans to help identify and elect a new slate of Republican leadership.”
As long as the GOP isn’t connecting the dots for voters between $4 a gallon gas and the harmful consequences of Big Government paternalism more generally, the current energy shock can’t be much more than a protective rear-guard action en-route to November’s shellacking.
Then, will the grassroots settle just for a leadership change?
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and proprietor of Tapscott’s Copy Desk blog on dcexaminer.com.
