Well, I am off to bed and despite my interest in politics, have not really the desire to wait up to see what happens in the U.S. Congressional races. My hunch is that by the time I wake up here in London, the Democrats will have taken the House and the Republicans might just hang on to the Senate, but it will be a very close call. I sympathise with the argument, put by various libertarians and small-government Republican supporters, that Bush needs what we Brits call a mighty kick in the bollocks for a number of bad moves, such as the explosive growth of spending on non-defense items, tariffs, the Patriot Act, growing interference in people’s private lives, etc, etc. I can see why many voters, even hawkish ones, have become bitterly angry over the mess in Iraq and wondered whether the Coalition should have heeded the voices of caution and pursued a containment/deterrence line rather than pre-emption. (I backed the ouster of Saddam pretty much from the start but have had my doubts about how the power vacuum might get filled without a sufficiently strong effort to help rebuild the country). The Republicans might, just might learn a valuable lesson: they have had power in Congress since 1994 and more recently, the White House. People do not tend to vote for centre-right parties in order to see a big rise in the size and power of the state. Maybe someone should send Bush a copy of Barry Goldwater’s old classic, The Conscience of a Conservative.
My main worry, drawn from the experience of Britain’s Conservative Party, is that a defeat for the Republicans may not lead to the sort of questioning of the Big Government philosophy known as “Compassionate Conservatism” as championed by Bush in recent years. We have seen how David Cameron has sought to meld the Tories into a pale imitation of NuLabour, in some ways trying to outdo Blair in the spending and taxation stakes. For all the talk that American politics is deeply polarised, perhaps the real truth is that the choices in front of the electorate are not distinct enough.
In case you want to scare off a mugger, why not buy some of these and put them on your coat? Tastes may vary.
“Well, I am off to bed and despite my interest in politics, have not really the desire to wait up to see what happens in the U.S. Congressional races.”
Go to bed, Johnathan, and don’t worry about it.
It’s going to be a fucking disaster. You can count on that.
Billy, disaster for whom? The cause of freedom, Bush, Dems, Justin Timberlake?
I never stay up for election results. The votes are cast, the result is decided. Why wait up to watch a count of bits of paper?
With a Democrat legislature and a Republican president they do all lose. However it isn’t nearly as good as a Democrat president and a Republican congress.
The main fuck up with regards to Iraq? Not going Roman into the damned place. We tried to treat those people like civilized, rational human beings. That was, and still is, our mistake.
The Democrats do not lose by having a Republican President, Guy – President Bush is not Captain Veto, and this not the Administration of President Ford and William Simon.
There will be more statism from this Congress that the last one – first order of business will be in an increase in the minimum wage law level (just as in various States – which helped get the Democrat voters to the polls in the first place, while some Republicans stayed home out of disgust with the “compassionate” spending).
There will also be more spending than the Republicans would have done (especially on health and education – but the new people will want their pet Pork projects to, the Republicans had already got their ones).
And there will be other statism. Although (hopefully) the quiet threats to make Fox and other non leftist media outlets more “objective” (i.e. as leftist as the rest of the media) will not come to pass.
Still let us be of good heart – “compassionate conservatism” is dead.
As the Wall Street Journal man said today on Fox “we are going to be hearing a lot less about George Bush from Republicans from now on, and a lot more about Ronald Reagan”.
Where the Republicans are already doing that they WON.
Take the example of Nevada – the Republican candidate, Mr Gibbons, for Governor had the media against him and was smeared as a rapist.
But he won anyway – he won because he was an anti big government man and had worked in this cause for years (not just at election time).
The United States has many faults but it is not Britain – there will be no young Mr Cameron in America.
Read even John McCain’s speech at the British Conservative party Conference – Mr Cameron thought he had brought over an ally (and indeed Senator McCain called him “my friend” and so on) but the speech was a direct attack on the whole acceptance of big govenrment that is Mr Cameron’s position.
This is because even John McCain knows he has to be anti big government to prosper in the post Bush Republican party.
Billy Beck wrote:
I suppose it beats a celibate disaster. 😉
So then, I guess there isn’t going to be a big celibation?
“Billy, disaster for whom? The cause of freedom, Bush, Dems, Justin Timberlake?”
[nod] Yup. You name ’em, and line ’em up.
I recently hit on a phrase that very neatly crystallizes what I see coming: “Decreasing eccentricity of orbit around socialist principles.” I’m going to have to post on this at length. What I think the Republicans will essentially “learn” — to cop a term much in parlance today — is the political value of compromise.
Do you understand?
This does not mean an eye-opening resurgence of fidelity to liberty. Nothing remotely like that. That hasn’t been in their blood in generations, and I haven’t the least reason to suspect that I’ll ever see anything like it in them in the rest of my life.