The Way Back From The Cold
By Mitch Berg
Hugh knows:
Tuesday was part Foley fallout and part GOP fatigue. But it was mostly disgust with the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight on the Hill. The country expected a lot from the majorities it gave the Republicans in 2004, and it got very little. The long explanation is here. Team Pelosi is a high price to pay, but two years is a very short time. If the Republicans elect the right leadership, recruit the right candidates, and select the right nominee for the White House in ’08, they will be back in the majority two years from now.
All, of course, depends on the party having its “Come to Jesus Reagan” moment. As Limbaugh among many others noted yesterday, conservatism didn’t get smacked on Tuesday (as, indeed, we saw here in Minnesota, where Gil Gutknecht’s race to the center was rewarded by ejection, while Michele Bachmann is measuring the drapes in DC); overt conservatives generally fared better than the party at large; and let’s not forget that while the polls showed generalized frustration with the way things are going in Iraq, the same polls also showed that people oppose cutting and running by nearly 2-1.
I’ll forgive Tim Pawlenty for taking an accomodationist stance against a hostile (and deeply silly) DFL legislature. Politics sometimes requires pragmatism.
I will not forgive the GOP runnig to the center now. Going Beltway – acting like a ruling party, like the Dems did from the thirties through the eighties – was what killed the GOP this week.
Nationally? Dump Frist, Hastert and the whole gang that squandered two years of political capital. Neuter McCain (or make him act like a Republican).
In Minnesota? Well, it’s clear that something at the MNGOP needs to change; Minnesota has gone from “Purple” to “sickly, cyanotic Blue” inside of two years. Who screwed the pooch?
What do y’all think?
November 9th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
The MNGOP royally screwed up. I can’t help but feel that Eibensteiner wouldn’t have let things get this bad. Our statewide offices got spanked — and that suggests that the GOP did not have the turnout they needed. It’s a testament to Pawlenty’s strength that he squeaked by — and we should all be thankful he did.
Gil Gutknecht should not have lost. Patricia Anderson should not have lost. Mary Kiffmeyer should not have lost. Klobuchar should not have beaten Kennedy by such an obscenely huge margin.
The MNGOP didn’t get the voters to the polls, and that’s a major failure in leadership that they’d better address before 2008 when the eyes of the world are going to be focused on us.
November 9th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
I think Jay’s comment shows a big disconnect, “The MNGOP didn’t get the voters to the polls..”
It is not a matter of getting folks to the polls, it is a matter of the Republican party losing its moorings. I thought the Republicans are supposed to be the party of fiscal discipline, limited government, and in their own words family values. The last few years on the Federal level have shown that not to be the case anymore, and that came back to haunt the GOP this year countrywide as voter can not believe those claims anymore at this time.
November 9th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Jay’s correct
the NRA got to me 5 times (I’m lifetime member) twice by phone and 3 times by mail
Ellison’s people got to me 5 times by phone and 6 time by mail – I’m not a registered democrat
only 1 (ONE) republican contacted me, by mail, and that was the guy who was running for my local legislative district
as far as the MNGOP was concerned I didn’t seem to have a vote they wanted.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
I’m going to agree with Fulcrum on this. It was not the GOTV effort. No one knew what the MNGOP stood for – not even the members of the party. Those of us that were campaigning for specific candidates were sometimes left to wonder what the state party was up to….
Regarding Kel’s statement re:multiple contacts. One of the things that I heard REPEATEDLY during the 2004 election was “IF YOU PEOPLE CALL OR MAIL ME ONE MORE TIME I’M NEVER GOING TO VOTE REPUBLICAN AGAIN!!!!!” The party listened and cut a lot of the “hard core” Republican voters off of it’s call list AND they gave the BPOU sole responsibility of the calling lists – so no calls from each individual campaign (as we had in 2004). Plus a lot of the BPOU phone banks could not get volunteers to call everyone because of campaign burn out. Too many people felt slighted over spending or the stadium or immigration or judicial nominations or whatever. The phone banks are staffed by volunteers and if no one volunteers to make calls, how are we supposed to call you?
November 9th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
I agree with Fulcrum. The GOP had trouble motivating voters (here and nationwide) because we’ve come so unglued from our ideological moorings.
I’m not sure you can separate ideology from turnout — the successes in 2002 and 2004 weren’t necessarily because of something technical, but because the GOP gave Republican voters something worth voting for. That just wasn’t the case this year.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
“Regarding Kel’s statement re:multiple contacts. ”
if the GOP base is so brittle and fragile that an extra phone call will stop them from “ever” voting Republican again then tuesday is just what we deserve.
One of the advantages of multiple mailings are the pass along effects. I have several friends who are not NRA members but I pass along the NRA/ILA mailing I get to them – often doubling and tripling the number of eyes that see them. This is good marketing! This year all I get is 1 mailing specific to the St Louis Park legislative house race – not a lot of pass along value there.
my point is if you want the base to feel unneeded then don’t call us.
November 9th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
Does the future of either party depend on pushing reluctant, uninformed, unmotivated, and/or forgetful voters to the polls? Wait, maybe it does for the Democrats.
Shouldn’t we focus on pulling voters into the booths?
November 9th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Awesome ! The GOP is going to follow the plan of the 2002 Democrats and jettison all their moderates. Great plan ! Lets see where that gets you in 2008.
GLOAT GLOAT GLOAT GLOAT
November 9th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
Politics is a lot like team sports. When the players get so self-centered, that they refuse to work for the whole team, the team can’t win. And if players are pulling in different directions, it doesn’t matter how many all-stars you have. Teams win team sports. Individuals don’t.
Voters watching all this from the sidelines ask, “why do I want to join a team with no respect for teamwork? Call me back when you have a common goal.”
November 10th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
JBauer,
You seem to put a LOT of weight on my predictions from the other night – more than I did, certainly.
I suppose it’s a nice diversion from the fact that now, the vacuous hamsters your party calls “leadership” have to actually try to “lead”.
I guess I’d rather quibble about such minutiae if I were in your flip-flops, too.