In Defeat, Republicans Opting for Insanity
by Chuck Muth (11/10/08)
The well-known definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. House Republicans appear to be insane.
When then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) stepped down in 2006, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) was elected to replace him. Boehner went on to lead Republicans with a bland, lame, uninspiring legislative agenda. Voters, led by conservatives who sat on their hands, rewarded him by kicking Republicans out of the majority in November of that year, hoping Republicans would wake up and change their evil ways before the White House was on the line.
They didn’t.
Learning nothing from that Election Day massacre, House Republicans re-elected Boehner as Minority Leader. He - and they, collectively, under his leadership - went on to bore the electorate with an unimaginative legislative agenda in opposition to a Democrat-led Congress under Speaker Nancy Pelosi which was even less popular, if you can believe it, than President Bush himself. Under Boehner’s leadership, Republicans couldn’t even agree to back a moratorium on “earmarks” and ended up backing that larded-up $700 billion Wall Street bailout.
Custer-like, Boehner then went on to lead his troops this week to yet another embarrassing election defeat against the most unpopular Congress in modern polling history. As conservative columnist George Will pointed out this week, Boehner has now lost some 55 seats in two short years.
“These are the worst Republican results in consecutive elections since the Depression-era elections of 1930 and 1932,” Will reminds depressed Republican voters. “If, as seems likely at this writing, in January congressional Republicans have 177 representatives…they will be weaker than at any time since after the 1976 elections, when they were outnumbered in the House 292-143.”
There are two things to take from Will’s point: One, Boehner has really stunk up the court; and two, under Boehner things could still get WORSE.
I’m not saying Boehner is a bad guy or that he’s not necessarily a good conservative. I’m saying that when a coach has back-to-back seasons as rotten as Boehner, the team usually fires the coach.
But not Team GOP.
Indeed, word coming out of Washington this week indicates Republicans are about to commit yet another act of political insanity by electing Boehner once again as House Minority Leader.
But don’t blame all conservatives in the House for this insanity. It appears it may be only ONE conservative responsible for this pending disaster - just like it wasn’t all of George Washington’s officers who sold out to the British.
Recognizing that Boehner, clearly enamored with power, was unwilling to do the right thing and step aside graciously, House conservatives, especially those who belong to the Republican Study Committee (RSC), were planning to run one of their own - highly regarded conservative Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) – for Minority Leader. Among those planning the conservative challenge and participating in the strategy sessions was former RSC Chairman Mike Pence (R-Indiana).
And then Pence sold them out.
According to a source close to the situation in Washington, on Thursday - unbeknownst to House conservatives - it was discovered that Pence had cut a deal to support Boehner for yet another term as Minority Leader in exchange for Boehner backing Pence for the #3 leadership position as Republican Conference Chairman. If true, Pence put his own personal ambition ahead of the best interests of the conservative movement and the Republican Party.
If this “deal” was indeed struck and is affirmed in the leadership elections scheduled to take place in a week, House Republicans will not only continue traveling down the now well-worn path of electoral failure, but Pence’s betrayal will divide the GOP ranks even worse than before. So movement grassroots conservatives, if they have any hope of turning their fortunes around in 2010, need to give John Boehner the old “Harriet Miers” treatment.
As you’ll recall, President Bush tried to name his longtime friend and highly under-qualified Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O’Connor. The conservative movement was furious and rose up in unified opposition, eventually forcing Miers to withdraw from consideration.
Conservatives need to rise up and oppose Boehner’s re-election as the House GOP Minority Leader in the same manner – or forever hold their peace. Let the calls, emails and faxes begin!
Copyright 2008 Chuck Muth.
http://chuckmuth.com/
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