Republicans Scramble

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Politics moves so quickly as to spin one’s head – like mine, for example. Bang out an article for this space one night only to see it rendered moot by the next day’s events. My instincts tell me that we have come to a juncture where recent events have culminated and coagulated to portend the immediate future for the GOP.

Word has it that after suffering an electoral rout a political party needs time to regroup. The media has not given the Republican Party even a minute to regroup. Not a day after the polls closed on November 4, 2008 the usual pundits were speculating about who would become the leader of the GOP. The party found itself under a media microscope and scrambled to recover. Rather than being in regroup mode, its remaining leaders succumbed to the media rush, succeeding only in making fools of themselves and the Grand Old Party.

The party took a gamble for unity by its unanimous nay-saying to President Obama’s economic stimulus bill in the House. A mere 3 Republican Senators chose unity in a bipartisan sense and joined with Democrats to pass the bill. Whether nay-saying to Nancy Pelosi, President Obama, the American people or all three, if the president fails and the country stumbles they can do their “I told you so” dance. If the president brings the country back to economic health, the gamble did not pay off as the nay-sayers were on the wrong side of a landmark issue, Republican winners in 2010 will be scarcer than in 2008 and the party will scramble again.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s GOP response to President Obama’s not-the-state-of-the-union speech was little more than an embarrassment to the Republican Party and Governor Jindal. Rarely has a major political speech garnered unanimously derisive reviews from both sides of the aisle. Jindal is seen as a potential leader in the party. That did not help his career.

GOP 2008 standard bearer John McCain has, as noted in The New York Times, returned to being Senator McCain. The Senator is a party elder who had his shot at leading the party. Time to look for fresh blood. But why the rush? After a humiliating defeat 4 months ago, why are the media pushing the emergence of a new leader? It’s been only 4 months! The media clamor for even mo' politics stirs the leadership and “alas, what now?” pots. Leaders in the Republican Party will surface. They always do – in both parties.

So, to the chagrin of the media, no one has grabbed the reins of the party. This leaves a vacuum and politics hates a vacuum – even more so when there’s a push to fill it. Hence the Republicans scramble.

With the headless GOP flailing about in confusion and desperation, the opportunity to make hay cries out for its vacuum to be filled. Up steps Rush Limbaugh to more than fill that vacuum with a haymaker to Barack Obama. Four days before Obama’s inauguration Limbaugh declared his wish for Obama and his economic policies to fail. Limbaugh’s own transcript of his January 16th performance:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_011609/content/01125113.guest.html

Then Limbaugh took the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) convention by storm with a performance re-broadcast in the national media and on line. Jumping up and down while working the crowd into a frenzy, Rush Limbaugh propelled himself into the forefront of those speaking on behalf of the Republican base. Rahm Emanuel wasted not a moment framing Limbaugh as the spokesman, if not leader by implication, of the Republican Party. For the Obama White House this was the gift that could keep giving.

Crossing Rush Limbaugh was never a wise move for a Republican, conversely a great move for a Democrat. To cross him now as the de facto mouthpiece of the headless GOP is political suicide. Witness the case of Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee. On CNN’s “DL Hughley Breaks the News”, Michael Steele ripped Limbaugh as nothing more than an incendiary entertainer. Steele’s crawling back with apologies begging Limbaugh for forgiveness has been well documented by the media.

Republican lawmakers find themselves in a far more difficult position, balancing patriotism and fear of Rush Limbaugh apparent power over the party’s base. In several interviews with Republican senators and congressmen, the anchor asked if they would say that they disagreed with Rush Limbaugh's statement. To agree with him would be to wish failure not merely on the president but on the United States. All expressed unconditional hope that Obama’s policies will succeed, yet all simultaneously refused to say the words: “I disagree with Rush Limbaugh.” Very much a game of semantics yet a highly symbolic one.

Republicans are nay-saying in Congress, pushing potential leaders to rush into bad speeches and kowtowing to an egotistical right wing fanatic. Are Republicans so small-minded and short-sighted as to want the country’s and thus the world’s economies to collapse for the benefit of personal, short term political gain? I think not.

This is America – where the 2-party system has thrived since its founding, routed parties lived to fight another day and the charlatans of the lunatic fringe are eventually disgraced. In the end, Rush Limbaugh will slither back under his rock and the best of the Republican Party will step forward to gather the reins of leadership and work to restore the country’s economic vitality.

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