Newt to Repubs: “You’re Screwed”
Human Events is batting a thousand today. First, as acallidryas points out, Pat Buchanan is yet again reminding the world of everything that makes him Pat Buchanan. But in a genuine shocker, they manage to publish something by Newt Gingrich in which he makes sense for at least half the article. I know! Stunning!
Here’s part of the opener to Newt’s plea to Republicans:
The facts are clear and compelling.
This is usually the point at which most Republicans go off the rails and start spouting anything but clear, compelling facts, but Newt actually dishes up a couple scoops of reality regarding the last two special Congressional elections:
Saturday’s loss was in a district that President Bush carried by 19 percentage points in 2004 and that the Republicans have held since 1975.
This defeat follows on the loss of Speaker Hastert’s seat in Illinois. That seat had been held by a Republican for 76 years with the single exception of the 1974 Watergate election when the Democrats held it for one term. That same seat had been carried by President Bush 55-44% in 2004.
So what’s at work in these defeats? Once again, Newt turns to reality:
The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti- Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton wins), anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail.
This model has already been tested with disastrous results.
True. In LA-06, the Republicans literally pulled out all the stops to tie Cazayoux to Obama and make the election a referendum on the national party. Saying “it didn’t work” is a massive understatement — “disastrous” really is the only word that applies (other than “hilarious”).
In short, Gingrich is very clear-eyed about the electoral fortunes of Republicans this fall, and his public admission that the “liberal smear” bit isn’t going to work this time around is refreshingly frank.
So what does he propose the Republicans do? This is where I really, really hope they take his advice, because the advice is utterly atrocious: basically, he’s offering up proposals that would (theoretically) lower gas prices temporarily by a sum total of maybe — maybe — forty cents per gallon. Additionally, he wants to overhaul the census system, eliminate earmarks, and use space-based GPS to replace our current air-traffic control system, along with a few other scraps of right-wing red meat.
In short, there’s nothing in Gingrich’s proposals to address long-term economic problems, health care concerns, the war in Iraq, or anything the majority of voters actually give a rat’s ass about. It’s Mark Penn-style microtargeting, which worked well in the 90’s but isn’t working at all in 2008.
There really does seem to be a massive inability on the part of 1990’s-era politicians to realize that, ten years later, conditions on the electoral playing field are vastly different. The consciousness of voters is different, and things like school uniforms and space-based air traffic control mean nothing to people who now live with the threat of foreclosure, declining wages, and the increasing inability to afford even the basic necessities.
The era of the policy wonk candidate really is over. Trouble is, not all of them have realized it yet.
