Four months after John McCain’s sweeping defeat, senior Republicans are coming to grips with the fact that the party is still – in stock market terms – looking for the bottom.
Republicans this week are processing two sobering new polls that found the party’s support reduced to a slim one-quarter of Americans. In the absence of a popular elected leader, its most visible figure is a polarizing radio host. Its strategic powerhouse is a still-divisive former House speaker forced from power 15 years ago.
And its hopes of demonstrating swift and visible change by pushing people of color to the fore have been dented by the stumbles of the party’s two most prominent non-white leaders, national Chairman Michael Steele and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that many prominent Republicans are forecasting a long winter.
“You think you hit bottom, and it can always go lower,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who said his party’s best hope is that President Barack Obama overreaches. “The Republicans just entered the wilderness – we’re going to wander around there for a little while before coming back stronger than ever.
“I have no idea where the bottom is just like I have no idea where the bottom is on the stock market,” he said.
“It probably gets worse before it gets better, though I’m not sure how much worse it could get,” said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire Republican leader and former state attorney general. “The first chance at redemption is 18, 19 months away, and we’re going to have to gut it out here for a while.”
Another party wise man, Fred Malek, told POLITICO the party now sits at its “nadir” – though he, like others, said its best hope is to wait for the economy to tarnish Obama.
“Our leaders’ arguments are falling on deaf ears today, but they are sound. It’s just a matter of time before this becomes Obama’s recession,” he said.
The gap in trust and popularity is mirrored, prominent Republicans fret, by a vast gap between the parties’ infrastructure. Republicans also fear that they are outmatched by a Democratic publicity and fundraising machine honed in opposition, and on display this week in a successful effort to associate the GOP with radio host Rush Limbaugh. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is trying to fashion a role as the intellectual driving force of the GOP-in-exile, but he hasn’t held office since the 1990s.
Add in a politically popular and groundbreaking Democratic president in Obama, and even the Republicans’ most practiced brawlers feel the party is flat-footed.
“The Left has put together the most powerful political coalition I’ve ever witnessed,” said former House majority leader Tom DeLay, whose 1994 GOP coalition once might have vied for that honor. “Obama improved upon it in the presidential campaign, but the Republicans are still in denial.”
Added John Weaver, a former McCain aide: “We’re working damn hard to see how fast we can hit rock bottom – we’re allowing the Democrats to completely not only set the national agenda but also set our internal agenda.”
Meanwhile the party’s governors, typically a source of strength for an out-of-power party, are largely overshadowed by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Some, like Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and South Carolina's Mark Sanford, have inserted themselves into the party's leadership scrum, while others are keeping their focus local and bracing for the storm.
“It’s just a matter of enduring the early days of transformation – it’s never going to be pretty and it’s never going to be fun to watch it play out beyond a pure entertainment level,” Utah’s Jon Huntsman told POLITICO. “We haven’t had a healthy, rigorous discussion about our future in many years, and meanwhile the world has changed. Unless we want to be consigned to minority-party status for a long time, we need to recognize these tectonic shifts happening under our feet.”
That light red area highlights the Bush Republican era, and the sliver of blue on the right is the Obama era. (I've updated this from an earlier version and added the yellow transition period between Election Day and the inauguration.
GOP: Greedheads Opponents and Piss Ants The right wing misanthropes who have been mewling and puking about the stock market need to be taught a lesson, or two. Obama didn’t break it, but he is working on fixing it.
The wingnuts who cheered when Dubya spent billions on a fraudulent war in Iraq now suddenly just can’t stand the thought of tax dollars going for schools and bridges and highways and medical research… and for pete’s sake.. JOBS???
Their lack of support for education makes sense. The stupider Americans are, the more likely they’ll fall for the same line of bull that has been handed out by malevolent GOP schemers ever since the Gipper entered center stage.
To review a few of the gigantic screw-ups which brought us to our current state of recession:
Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the law which kept banks on the straight and narrow? Obama had nothing to do with that.
Cutting the budget of the Securities and Exchange Commission even as financial markets became more and more complex? Obama had nothing to do with that.
Taking huge dollars from lobbyists while gutting the federal financial regulatory system? Nope, wasn’t Obama. It was Republicans, mostly. Now Obama and his team are working to fix the mess. Republicans, what’s left of them, are howling and yowling like castrated cats in a clothes dryer. Spin ‘em some more. Most likely, he will fix it. But first, Republicans, bend over… this just might hurt a little…
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