Republicans still don’t “get it”

After 8 long years of our country being run into by President Bush, six years of which were with a Republican dominated Congress, our country can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Of course, there are still some GOP spinmeisters, politicians, “Conventional Wisdom” village media voices, and supporters who still don’t “get it”.

In 2006, after 6 years of unfettered GOP control of our government, the people of America spoke during the midterms turning both the Senate and House over to the Democratic Party.  For the next 2 years, the Republicans threatened to filibuster every move by the Democrats in the Senate to the point that a 60 vote standard was instituted.   The results of the 2008 election are not finalized, but, to date, the Democratic Party has increased its majority in the Senate now to 54 Senate seats with 2 independents (who caucus with the Democrats).  With the outstanding races in Georgia, Alaska and Minnesota, the Democratic Party could possibly gain up to 3 more Senate seats.  There are still 6 Congressional races uncalled, but, the Democratic Party has already picked up 22 seats in the House giving them a clear majority with 257 House seats.

Senator Hutchinson from Texas understood what this election meant:  “The people have spoken. We hear the people and now it’s time to come behind our president,” Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, told “The Early Show” on CBS on Wednesday. “The Senate is going to have to work things out in a bipartisan way, and I think the test is going to be right there.”

The Republican Party, for 2 years, became the poster child for “obstructionist” politics.  The American people spoke; we are tired of it and if you will not allow our government to function, you will be voted out if possible.  There are those who just don’t get it, however, like Sen. DeMint of South Carolina:  “Americans have again rejected the Democrat-lite strategy of higher spending and bigger government, and it’s time for Republicans to chart a new, more principled course,” DeMint said. “Democrats didn’t run on their true liberal agenda … They ran against President Bush and congressional Republicans whose image was tarnished by scandals and broken promises.”  Sen. DeMint blamed Republicans for abandoning their principles, yet, they surely had no problem abandoning those principles when they held power.  

Right.  The GOP lost even more seats simply because the GOP just wasn’t radical enough!  Electing a Democratic President, extending the Democratic majority in the Senate and the House even further, was simply because the Democrats lied to America about their “true” agenda.  It’s not like there wasn’t 20 months of campaigning for the people to figure it out.      

People seem to forget that the Supreme Court refused to block the redistricting that favored the GOP in Texas in 2004.  The Supreme Court upheld the GOP redistricting in Pennsylvania in 2004.  GOP operatives and partisan state officials worked vigorously to purge voter rolls in numerous states prior to the election.  Yet, despite trying to “stack the deck”, the overwhelming repudiation of the GOP governing tactics and policies rang through this election.

People seem to forget that the past 8 years were not a “divergence” from conservative principles; it was GOP principles and policies allowed unfettered access to government.  In 2000, George Bush was installed as our President by the Supreme Court and for 6 years, the GOP ruled and got everything they wanted.  Once given power, the true “conservative” agenda was unleashed; deregulation, corporations first, the rich get breaks while the middle class gets squeezed.  The foreclosure and credit crisis, while decades in the making, finally came to pass once the GOP opened the flood gates with their policies.

As with the election in 2006, the American people have once again spoken, and once again, the Republican Party suffered the backlash for their obstructionist, hate-filled, screw the middle class attitude of running the government.  Just as in 2006, the GOP has yet to learn the lesson.  Rep. Boehner stated:   “The American people want and deserve accountability from Washington Democrats, and Republicans will stand on principle to ensure they get it,” Boehner said Tuesday night, adding that the party would resort to its principles of “freedom, opportunity, security and individual liberty.”

The American people wanted the same level of accountability we deserved from Washington Republicans and never got it.  When Monica Goodling admitted that she broke the law in hiring for the Department of Justice, there was no accountability.  When Alberto Gonzales perjured himself in front of Congress, there was no accountability and he was allowed to slip out the door.  When it was revealed that President Bush ordered the domestic wiretapping before 9/11 in violation of the law, there was no accountability.  When it was shown that all justifications for invading Iraq, a soveriegn nation, were false, lies, or distortions of the truth, there was no accountability.  When it was shown that Halliburton, KBR, and other federal contractors were raping our treasury and profiteering from the war, there was no accountability.  But, now that the American people have spoken once again, taking away even more power from the GOP, now they believe that the American people deserve accountability?  Sen. Stevens from Alaska is a convicted felon, yet, over 100,000 conservatives in Alaska voted to send him back to Congress.  If, or when, Harry Reid fulfills his promise to have Sen. Stevens ousted from the Senate if he should win the election, how many conservatives will whine and cry about how unfair it is that he be held accountable for his actions?  So much for the Party of “values” and the “rule of law”.  

This election saw the most vile, hate-filled campaigns coming from Republicans we have ever seen.  Democratic politicians and supporters were called unpatriotic, un-American, terrorist sympathizers, socialists, Marxists, and Communists.  When a conservative voice dared to speak up with the truth, such as Kathleen Parker, they had that same anger directed at them that they helped stoke against others.  When the media dared to point out the lies coming out of the McCain campaign, Gov. Palin whined about how it was stifling her First Amendment rights, yet, the GOP had no problem trampling the rights of the American citizen whenever they could.

The GOP put up Gov. Palin as an “everyday hockey mom”, then went into a frenzy when it came out that she went on a $150,000 shopping spree at upscale stores calling it “gotcha politics”.  The GOP put up “Joe the Plumber” as the average middle class conservative, then went into a frenzy when it came out that he hadn’t paid his taxes and wasn’t even a licensed plumber decrying the invasion of his privacy.  Yet, it was the GOP and their smear agents who went after a child and his family, digging into their finances and what type of counter tops they owned because the child was helped by SCHIP and had the gall to state that in a national forum.  But the GOP and their supporters don’t get it.  This election did not just see Democratic supporters voting in record numbers, it saw independent voters supporting the Democratic agenda, and, it saw previously conservative voters voting Democratic in repudiation of the Party they once supported.

John O’Conner writes at The State newspaper in South Carolina that there is no pity party for Republicans, that conservatives in South Carolina were now looking forward to 2010 and 2012.  In a time when our economy is the worst it has been since the 1929 crash, when people cannot afford health care, when families are not earning a decent wage to afford food, that anyone would be looking ahead to the next election instead of focusing on the problems we face now is astounding.  The State newspaper, in one of the most Orwellian pieces I’ve ever read, actually tries to make the case that South Carolina helped Sen. Obama win the election simply because Democrats in South Carolina voted for Sen. Obama in the Democratic primary.  Let’s forget, like most conservatives are want to do, the facts; South Carolina’s electoral votes went to Sen. McCain and The State newspaper endorsed Sen. McCain over Sen. Obama.

Mr. Warthan, the Editorial Page Editor and VP at The State newspaper, wrote that now is the time to put partisanship aside.  He writes:  “For 16 years, we have grown more and more divided and embittered, as first one huge chunk of the nation and then another refused even to acknowledge the legitimacy of the president. Clung to that anger and resentment for eight long years, and then took delight more in the other side’s loss than their side’s victory.”  The problem with this statement is that it conveniently overlooks the history and facts.

The GOP truly went after President Clinton with a witchhunt until they finally found something in which to prosecute him; lying under oath about an affair.  Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were used to investigate everything from who had access to the Lincoln bedroom to his Christmas cards.  Even after starting impeachment hearings, the GOP couldn’t bring itself to convict President Clinton in the Republican controlled Senate.  As for the legitimacy of the Presidency, it is a fact that President Bush was not elected President in 2000, he was installed as President by the Supreme Court who ordered all recounts stopped in Florida.  Because of that one decision by the Supreme Court, our nation has had to endure 8 long years until we ended up with a wrecked economy, our moral standing in the world in shatters due to the torture we inflicted on detainee’s, our snubbing of the Geneva Conventions, our invasion of Iraq based on lies and distortions, over 4200 dead American men and women in a war that never should have been fought in Iraq, and government agencies so politicized that the Department of Justice, FEMA, and other agencies that barely function.  

The State newspaper endorsed Sen. McCain and South Carolina, as it has in the past, once again got left behind as the nation said “enough.”  But, the conservatives and the GOP just don’t get it.  There are people in America who have seen beyond the lies and spin.  There are people in America who remember the past and don’t wish our future to be the same.  While there are many who still believe that the end is coming because Sen. Obama won the Presidency, there are many of us who know better.  While Bill Clinton was not my favorite President, he did preside over a booming economy in which every year unemployment rates dropped and he left our government with a surplus.  In 8 short years, the GOP under President Bush wrecked all of it.  There is no reason to believe that President Obama, with a Democratic Congress, cannot restore the prosperity we once knew as a nation.

If the Republican Party and its supporters decide to fight that, to be shrill, vile, obstructionists, then they are making the conscious choice to keep every American in poverty, to keep food from your table, to keep you from being able to afford medical care for you and your children, and to watch more people become homeless.  If that is the path the GOP decides upon, in 2010 the GOP will lose even more seats in the Senate and House.  Two elections have past and the people have spoken; enough.  We are tired of the hate, the vile smears, the obstructionist ways, the lack of accountability, the lack of action, and the “screw the poor” mentality.  It is up to the GOP and its supporters whether or not they “get it” this time.

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