As I write this column, a couple of days after the mid-term elections, the Democrats have taken over the U.S. House and are poised to capture the Senate.
Sen. George Allen of Virginia has called for a recount, but at this juncture, he is 8,000 votes behind. If Allen does lose his seat, which seems likely, Democrats will control both of houses of Congress.
If so—make no mistake about it—this is a Republican loss, not a conservative loss.
Republicans lost because the Bush administration and the Republican leadership often cavalierly abandoned the populist conservative message and policies of Ronald Reagan.
For too long Americans have come to view the conservative movement and the Republican Party as one and the same. Indeed, they are not.
Conservatives need to re-establish their identity and independence from Republicanism. The Bush administration has been hijacked by neoconservatives who believe in “big government conservatism.” The very phase is an oxymoron—designed to give cover for big government intervention in both the domestic and foreign-policy arenas.
The neoconservatives support open borders, expansion of the education bureaucracy, and promoting democracy in the Mideast through military intervention.
Republicans paid a heavy price at the ballot box for their failure over the last few years to live up to the ideals and standards that Americans believed the GOP represented when Republicans took the House from the Democrats a decade ago and when Bush won the presidency in 2000.
The election turned out to be what many conservatives had feared—a referendum on the performance of the Bush White House and the Republican Congress, rather than a contest between the competing parties’ visions for America.
Republicans lost touch with almost every element of their base.
Economic conservatives could not understand it when the Bush White House teamed up with Sen. Teddy Kennedy on big-government legislation such as No Child Left Behind and the prescription drug bill. They could not understand why “conservative” leaders such as Tom Delay carried the water for the president on behalf of this massive expansion of government.
Conservatives were perhaps most dismayed with the administration’s failure to secure U.S. borders and to deal with illegal immigration. Many conservatives such as Bill Buckley, Brent Scowcroft, and Pat Buchanan were skeptical early on about the war with Iraq, which they viewed as unnecessary and not a part of the war on terrorism.
To further complicate matters, Republicans—who were elected by promising the highest standards of integrity—were involved in one scandal after another involving members of Congress, Republicans, lobbyists, and some members of the Bush administration.
Exit polls indicated that the American electorate had become more than skeptical regarding the war in Iraq, concerned about the war on terrorism, and the scandals in Washington.
One final nail in the coffin of the GOP was the failure at all levels of government in responding to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One note: In my opinion this emphatically excludes the leadership by Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi in efforts exhibited in rebuilding his state.
In short, the mid-term elections can be summed up as a crisis of confidence in the GOP-controlled Congress and the Bush White House.
Sadly, it seems that the Party of Reagan has been hijacked by the neo-cons, the big-government crowd, and pragmatists.
The debate for the heart and soul of the Republican Party and the conservative movement has begun. Let’s hope we are up to the job.
The question is this…
Do we want do the stay the course, or do we want to want to return to the Party of Reagan?
Marc Rotterman is a partner in Rotterman & Associates, a public relations company, and a senior fellow of the John Locke Foundation.