I realize that I’m a bit late with this article, but the last few weeks have been hard to come to terms with. Like every other American, I witnessed the crushing defeat of one big-government party at the hands of another big-government party, so, I had to come to grips with the effects this change of leadership will have on the country (read: no effect whatsoever). I’ll admit, the GOP loss of both houses of Congress came as a surprise to me. I originally predicted that the GOP would lose the House of Representatives, but as Election Day drew closer it looked more and more like they might actually hold on to both houses. Even the typically over-pessimistic Bob Novak was only predicting a 4-person Democratic Majority in the House and a 50/50 tie in the Senate. So, my hopes were up. Then, boom! November 7th was a dark, dark day for the GOP.

Yet, I still looked at the silver lining. Now that the GOP had gotten the message that the American public was tired of its constant demagoging and lack of principle, I figured the National Party and the GOP Congressional Minority would take said message to heart. Things were looking good. Club for Growth Congressman Mike Pence announced his run for House Minority Leader. Michael Steele was considered a front-runner for the national party chair. It looked like the GOP was finally going to bring itself back to reality. Then, well, reality dealt GOP voters everywhere a death blow. First, it was announced that Florida Senator Mel Martinez, a status quo Bushite Senator would become the party chair. Then, days later, we heard that Rep. John Boehner had beaten out Mike Pence for the Minority Leader slot. That same day, the coup-de-gras happened. The king of pork himself, Trent Lott, became the second ranking Republican in the Senate.

Instead of even wetting our appetites for change, the Congressional Republicans decided to put back into power the same group of status quo “leaders” that engineered the greatest defeat in the history of the Republican Party. At first, I thought there was no way a group of people could be this stupid. Then I remembered, they are congressmen.

In defeat, one should logically expect something to change. But it did not. Oh, sure, the rhetoric has changed considerably. Now, instead of completely ignoring the principles of small-government and a free-market, the GOP is at least paying lip service to it. But that’s all it is. Just more demagoguery from a party that proved it could not govern effectively, even when it controlled all three branches of government. Demagoguery? Yes. If the GOP was serious about its newfound love for small-government, it would have elected leaders that have actually proven to have some propensity toward small-government, not the same old big-government “conservatives” that destroyed the future of the party and put the nation in the hands of the liberal left. So, as of now, I don’t trust a word coming out of the National Party or the GOP Congressional Leaders.

I have never been more embarrassed to call myself a member of the Republican Party. This is worse than the Mark Foley Incident, worse than the Terri Schaivo debacle, worse than the inane gay-marriage bill, worse than the bloated spending, worse than the largest expansion of Federal Bureaucracy in U.S. history, worse than the 8.6 trillion dollar deficit, worse than the failure to stop illegal immigration, worse than the Dubai Ports World deal, worse than the Katrina response. Because in all of aforementioned scenarios, at least there was hope for change, hope for new leadership, and hope for a rededication to small government. Thanks to the unwillingness of the GOP to accept reality, that hope is lost.

But then again, “Stay the Course”…that has been the GOP motto for the past 4 years, right?

[UPDATE 7:05 PM] Peach Pundit is now reporting that tax-raising Republican Governor Sonny Perdue has been selected as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Is there any position of leadership where the GOP can actually put the right man in the position at this point?

Posted by Jace Walden on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 5:43 pm | under Uncategorized | |RSS 2.0 feed | Comments and pings closed. |