The Road Not Taken

Forfeiting a Majority

Because this is one of the busiest times of the year for those who work in my field, blogging has been light for a while. But even though we have to put in long hours, we still have some time to get to an important essay from Hugh Hewitt. On Townhall.com Mr. Hewitt takes a look at how Republicans squandered their majority in the most feckless of ways and allowed the Democrats to win an election that they should have lost. While The Angry Left always blames others for their election losses, we must look to ourselves and ask what we did, and what we should have done, to avoid this outcome. This is an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and do better the next time around.

While The Elite Media Monoculture is trying to paint this election as a rejection of Republican values, the reality is that it has been the Republican leadership in this congress which has strayed from the principles and ideas which are at the base of conservatism. Smaller government, lower spending and an unapologetic defense of American values and ideas were missing in the last few years from our Republican leaders in the House and Senate. Instead we got out of control spending, failure to enforce the border, little movement on judges who deserve an up or down vote and the restriction of our rights by McCain-Feingold and the Kelo decision. It is no wonder that the Republican base was dissatisfied.

If there is a positive to this election, it is that perhaps it will cause members of the party, and particularly those at the top, to pay closer attention to the wishes of the base who want their representatives to not only speak the words of conservative philosophy, but to act on them as well.

In the Senate three turning points stand out.

On April 15, 2005 --less than three months after President Bush had begun a second term won in part because of his pledge to fight for sound judges-- Senator McCain appeared on Hardball and announced he would not support the "constitutional option" to end Democratic filibusters. Then, stunned by the furious reaction, the senator from Arizona cobbled together the Gang of 14 "compromise" that in fact destroyed the ability of the Republican Party to campaign on Democratic obstructionism while throwing many fine nominees under the bus. Now in the ruins of Tuesday there is an almost certain end to the slow but steady restoration of originalism to the bench. Had McCain not abandoned his party and then sabotaged its plans, there would have been an important debate and a crucial decision taken on how the Constitution operates. The result was the complete opposite. Yes, President Bush got his two nominees to SCOTUS through a 55-45 Senate, but the door is now closed, and the court still tilted left. A once-in-a-generation opportunity was lost.

A few months later there came a debate in the Senate over the Democrats' demand for a timetable for withdrawal for Iraq led to another half-measure: A Frist-Warner alternative that demanded quarterly reports on the war's progress, a move widely and correctly interpreted as a blow to the Administration’s Iraq policy. Fourteen Republicans voted against the Frist-Warner proposal --including Senator McCain-- and the press immediately understood that the half-measure was an early indicator of erosion in support for a policy of victory.

Then came the two leaks of national security secrets to the New York Times, and an utterly feckless response from both the Senate and the House. Not one hearing was held; not one subpoena delivered. A resolution condemning these deeply injurious actions passed the House but dared not name the New York Times. The Senate did not even vote on a non-binding resolution.

Nor did the Senate get around to confirming the president's authority to conduct warrantless surveillance of al Qaeda contacting its operatives in the United States. Weeks were taken up jamming the incoherent McCain-Kennedy immigration bill through the Judiciary Committee only to see it repudiated by the majority of Republicans, and the opportunity lost for a comprehensive bill that would have met the demand for security within a rational regularization of the illegal population already here.