Last week's Democratic triumph at the polls brings an end to Newt Gingrich's ('65C) 1994 Republican Revolution and shows that the Republicans are in danger of becoming a permanent minority party if they do not change their ways.
The Republicans who stormed into power in the House in 1994 promised to change Washington. Washington instead changed them. After 12 years of power in the House, and many years of control in the Senate, the Republicans found themselves embroiled in corruption scandals and detached from the conservative values that brought them to power. The party of small government and financial prudence had created the largest budget deficit in our country's history.
To distract citizens from the government's failure to control spending, Karl Rove and the Republican Party turned to the three Gs: God, Guns and Gays. The GOP tried to use religion, gay marriage and the threat that Democrats would eliminate the right to bear guns to its advantage. Republicans coupled the three Gs with other wedge issues like flag burning and abortion to avoid tackling more pertinent issues, like the War in Iraq.
It took an unpopular war, a huge corruption scandal and Mark Foley to actually turn the tide against the Republicans, but last week it happened in a big way. The Republicans adopted a poor campaign strategy and the Democrats for once ran a decent campaign to sweep back into power.
The problem for the Republicans was that they refused to change their ways. They continued to run on wedge issues and to support conservative candidates who in many ways were out of line with voters. The Democrats picked moderate candidates who were able to get elected in more conservative districts. By picking pragmatism over ideology, the Democrats took back Congress.
But the GOP's loss may be more serious than even conservatives might think. Many moderate Republicans were voted out of Congress, including Senators Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Mike DeWine of Ohio. The GOP is almost ceding the Northeast to the Democrats. By focusing on the South, extreme conservatives and evangelicals, the Republicans are straying away from the center. In this election, many independents and moderate Republicans voted for Democrats because of the Republican Party's behavior. If the Republicans do not move back to the center, look for the Democrats to win more seats in Congress, along with the presidency, in 2008.
Karl Rove contended throughout this election that the GOP's "Get Out the Vote" effort would catapult the Republicans to victory. This was clearly not the case. Rove said the loss fell in line with historical trends, which it clearly did.
But in prior elections, Rove was able to buck historical trends. Rove's tactics failed so spectacularly, that even Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman criticized him. "If we simply say there were historical problems we could not overcome, and that we did not have a chance to win, then we have a real problem," Mehlman said.
President Bush claimed publicly before and after the election that he thought Republicans would win. This prompted a reporter to ask the President: "Are you out of touch with the American people?"
The answer to this question is clear. Both the president and the Republican Party are out of touch. The majority of Americans aren't on the far left or right; they are in the center, and the GOP needs to return to this center before the 2008 election cycle.
Benjamin van der Horst is a College sophomore from Cincinnati. He is executive director of the nonpartisan political organization CSAmerica and the managing editor of the Emory Political Review.
This article ran 11/17/06.
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