A Brief Postmortem of the Republican Loss

Now that the handwringing over the election of over and Sean Hannity and Mark Levin have started the official Boo-Hoo Fest, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that the GOP leadership was well and truly warned by all the hardworking grassroots Republicans that this day would surely come.

Remember us Mr. Mehlman? The Americans whom the Party leaders have treated like a floozy on the morning after since 2005? I bet you do now.

As I am one of those abused grassroots Republicans, I can say with no small sense of vindication that after what the Republican Party leadership did to divorce itself from- and to overtly demonize- its conservative majority base, the GOP in situ deserved to be dope-slapped, and so it has come to pass with ridiculous ease of predictability. (What was that word again? Oh, yes: hubris.) The GOP began sewing the seeds for their 2006 defeat way back in January 2005 under the limpwristed, obsequious, and obstinate leadership of Ken Mehlman, Bill Frist, Dennis Hastert, John McCain, Arlen Specter, and yes, even moderate wunderkind George W. Bush.

As far back as the Summer of 2005, I warned that unless the Party leadership pulled their heads out of their colons and started doing what they told the people who elected them that they would do, November 2006 was going to be a very cold month indeed for them.

I repeated the warning last summer (scroll down to Aug. 15), in the midst of the GOP leadership's arrogant attempt to circumvent the will of the American people by granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. I was roundly accused by the "electability" wing and the RINOs of being everything from a hyperconservative lunatic to a Democrat mole. I held my ground. I declared that because of the moral failure and political cowardice of the elected leadership of the Republican Party, November was going to be a cold month indeed.

I was right.

The reasons why the Republicans lost are connected with one overarching theme: the abandonment by the GOP leadership of the founding principles and values of the Republican Party. Yet the "electability" wing of the Party thought those principles were old-fashioned and unimportant- the rallying cry of the extreme right wing whackos. What was needed, they reasoned, were candidates whose views were not do "extreme." My response to that is this: your "electability" lost the election.

Holding our Party's leadership accountable for their betrayal of the people who fought hard for them in 2004 is necessary, and it is correct. Accountability must be swift, and it must be decisive. It is absolutely necessary if the rennaissance of the true-to-values Republican Party is to take place. Every man and woman who calls himself or herself a true Republican must take responsibility for the reformation that is required if our party is to ever be fit to lead again. The Republicans who fought so hard in 2004 and were burned by the party need to take the lead on this. What exactly has the "electability" wing done to the Republican Party? Read the following indictment.

Capitulation to liberalism by our Party leaders is exactly what cost the GOP this election. It is also the worst possible direction our Party could have taken. Yet this was the direction that was stupidly taken by the "electability" crowd that comprises the current leadership in the GOP on the federal and state levels.

We everyday people (myself included) who endured the hate- and violence-filled onslaught that Democrats and anarchist liberals poured upon us during the 2004 elections feel more than a simple sense of betrayal by the Party leadership and key elected leaders. No sooner did the 2005 Congressional session begin than these same grassroots torch-bearers for the 2004 victory were escorted off the dance floor. All that the elected leaders promised was immediately discarded, and the American people perceived a distinct lack of moral courage among the pantheon of Republicans in the House and Senate. These recipients of our hard-won political capital promptly abandoned every key issue for which they were elected to champion, as they promised they would. They turned yellow faster than a traffic light in a speed trap.

Examples of the "Great GOP Sellout" are:

• The capitulation to the Democrat minority vis a vis the McCain-led "Gang of 14";
• The First Lady and GOP leaders calling conservatives "sexist" and "narrow-minded" for opposing the SCOTUS nomination of the spectacularly-unqualified Harriet Miers;
• Dennis Hastert's expression of arrogant indignation about being accountable to the People of the United States and his defense of William Jefferson;
• Willful intent among Republican Senators to violate the will of the people through granting amnesty to illegal aliens; out-of-control pork spending;
• President Bush's perceived failure to prosecute the war in Iraq in a decisive manner and his perceived refusal to modify the plan when the existing one failed to achieve results, etc.

The rationale among Americans for voting the GOP out of leadership was that since they were acting like Democrats anyway, why not just vote for Democrats (which I, for one, did not)?

I think that the another thing that angered Americans enough to cause us to withdraw our support was the fact that our Republican leadership stiffarmed us and called us "crybabies," "extremists," "nutjobs," and "lunatics" when we rightly expressed our dismay regarding their abandonment of the principals upon which they ran, and upon which we elected them. It further angered us to watch as the Party leadership either ignored, refused to support, or outright smeared Republican candidates who were running on a more conservative platform.

There may be some Republicans who simply give up on the party after this. This is a bad idea. If anything, the defeat in this election underscores the absolute requirement for core-values Republicans to take responsibility for their Party and start cleaning house. I am not advocating a "great purge" of all moderates from the party; that is damned nonsense. But I am definitely advocating a purge of all of the RINOs who went against their party's core values, and of any among the GOP leadership who persist in undermining the party's core values through propping up RINO candidates and stiffarming core-values Republicans. These people are poisonous to this Party. The fact that RINO-led Republican leadership was shown the door two nights ago is enough data to underscore the truth in what I say.

Let us not continue to fall under the delusion that Mehlman and company have foisted upon us. If Republicans ever want to hold the majority again, the RINOs have to go. Now. Without fanfare. And with a complementary road map to the DNC. The Party then can be left to return to the values that reflect the base as demonstrated in the "Contract with America," and that made our Party great from the day of its inception.

What I strongly urge every man and woman who calls himself or herself a Republican (myself included) to do is to read the founding values of our Republican Party carefully and with sober reflection. Then let's get busy, because we have a lot of work to do to square this party- and our country- away.

The GOP has lost their majority in the House and the Senate. The American people can now look forward to 24 months of gridlock. Our federal government will spend the next 2 years bogged down in "investigative hearings" and "litmus tests." Our borders will be thrown open. Our troops will be glad to hear that John Murtha, the man who called our troops "butchers," will head the House Armed Services Comittee. Oh, yeah- that'll draw people into the recruiting offices, won't it? And now the people who "voted before the war before they voted against it" are in a position to waffle this nation right into oblivion.

And we have the current "electable" leadership of the Republican Party to blame for that. It's time to clean house.