Bill Kristol is relentlessly optimistic. He never sees a cloud that doesn't have a silver lining for the Republican Party, even when the cloud is the defection from the party's ranks of a veteran senator.
In the Washington Post, Kristol writes that yesterday's announcement that Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter is joining the Democrats is good news for the Republicans.
At first blush, that may seem ludicrous. Republicans have lost their hold on 14 Senate seats since matching their post–Depression high of 55 in 2004. If Al Franken assumes the Senate seat from Minnesota — as now appears likely — Democrats will hold the presumably "filibuster–proof" 60–seat majority they openly coveted during the 2008 campaign.
But Kristol believes this can be a good thing for the GOP.
Barack Obama and the Democrats, he writes, will "be responsible for everything. GOP obstructionism will go away as an issue, and Democratic defections will become the constant worry and story line. This will make it easier for GOP candidates in 2010 to ask to be elected to help restore some checks and balance in Washington — and, meanwhile, Specter's party change won't likely have made much difference in getting key legislation passed or not. So, losing Specter may help produce greater GOP gains in November 2010, and a brighter Republican future.
"Plus, now the Democrats have to put up with him."
The impact of the 60–seat majority on next year's elections remains to be seen, but history does provide ample evidence of the lack of discipline among Democrats — and the price they have paid for it.
As I observed yesterday, Jimmy Carter was the last president whose party held such an advantage in the Senate, but it didn't help him too much. The absence of unity in the Democrats' approach to governing enabled Republicans to chip away at the majority in the midterm elections of 1978, followed by the loss of a dozen seats in the Republican landslide of 1980.
In the 1960s, Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson built an even greater Democratic majority in the Senate, exceeding two–thirds of the Senate membership, but Republicans gradually chipped away at the deficit until being sidetracked by the Watergate scandal.
And Harry Truman, whose Democrats reclaimed majorities in both houses of Congress while Truman was winning his "upset" victory in the 1948 presidential campaign, handed control of Congress over to Dwight Eisenhower and the Republicans four years later.
I am reminded, in an odd way, of something Gene Wilder (as Willy Wonka) said to Charlie Bucket at the end of the 1971 film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory:"
"Charlie, don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted," Wonka said.
"What happened?" Charlie asked.
"He lived happily ever after," Wonka replied.
Specter may have given the Democrats everything they wanted, but history suggests it is unlikely that they will live happily ever after.
As this political drama plays out over the next couple of years, I urge you to remember the words of Will Rogers:
"I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat."
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2 comments:
Now that the anti-science, superstition-based initiative presidency ends, we need several public works science Manhattan projects to make us great again and boost us out of this Grotesque Depression. First we must provide free advertising-based wireless internet to everyone to end land line monopolies. Then we must criscross the land with high speed rail. Because bovine flatulence is the major source of greenhouse gases, we must develop home growable microbes to provide all of our protein. Then we must create microbes which turn our sewage and waste into fuel right at home. This will end energy monopoly by putting fuel in our hands. We must address that most illness starts from behavior, especially from parents. Since paranoid schizophrenia is the cause of racism, bigotry, homelessness, terrorism, ignorance, exploitation and criminality, we must provide put the appropriate medications, like lithium, in the water supply and require dangerous wingnuts who refuse free mental health care to be implanted with drug release devices. Churches should be licensed to reduce supersition and all clergy dealing with small children should be psychiatrically monitored to prevent molesting. Osama bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh were the ultimate superstition based initiatives. Aborting future terrorists and sterilizing their parents is the most effective homeland security. Widen navigation straits (Gibraltar, Suez, Malacca, Danube, Panama and Hellspont) with deep nukes to prevent war. In order to fund this we must nationalize the entire financial, electrical and transportation system and extinguish the silly feudal notion that each industry should be regulated by its peers. Technology mandates a transformation of tax subsidies from feudal forecloseable debt to risk sharing equity. Real estate and insurance, the engines of feudalism, must be brought under the Federal Reserve so we may replace all buildings with hazardous materials to provide public works. Insects, flooding and fire spread asbestos, lead and mold which prematurely disables the disadvantaged. Disposable manufactured housing assures children are not prematurely disabled and disadvantaged. Because feudalism is the threat to progress everywhere, we must abolish large land holdings by farmers, foresters or religions and instead make all such large landholding part of the forest service so our trees may diminish greenhouse gases. We must abolish executive pay and make sure all employees in a company are all paid equally. We must abolish this exploitative idea of trade and monopoly and make every manufactured disposable cottage self sufficient through the microbes we invent.
If I understand you correctly ...
... and if this isn't all written tongue in cheek ...
your suggestion is to put everything in the hands of the government.
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