Let's Not Lose This Election And Say We Did, Mmmkay?

Kaus has links to Ramesh Ponuru's uncharacteristically daft call for Republicans to lose the November elections. I'll chalk this up to Ponuru just wanting some New York Times money, and knowing that only a Republican who says things like this can get published there. (I keed.)

Jonah Goldberg has also chimed in about how not-terribly-awful losing the election would be.

Is NRO on crack?

The time for this kind of talk is after we lose the election, if we do, and we're all trying to console ourselves. We shouldn't be making noises like this now. As Kaus points out, many conservatives are angry about Bush's soft-on-illegal-immigration stance. But the only thing keeping that from passage is Republican control of the House. If we lose the House, the "reform" that has conservatives ready to sit out the election passes easily from the House to the Senate to the President's desk.

There are some big problems with Republican governance. But has no one noticed that a popular revolt by conservatives against Republican missteps has actually had sanguinary effects? Republicans were whipsawed into opposing Bush's amnesty by popular action. Republican overspending was partly redressed by the Obama-Coburn bill and daylight reforms to the Appropriation Committees rules.

Yes, Republican politicians are, as a group, stupid and corrupt and lacking in principle or conviction. Because they're politicians. But, to their credit, they're also cowards, and afraid of us conservative voters.

Is it easier for conservative voters to cow Republican politicians into doing they promised to do, or to cow Democratic polticians into doing what they promised to not do? How much of an effect is a conservative popular revolt going to have on Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and John Conyers, I wonder?

It is common wisdom that Republican Congressmen deserve to lose this November. Fine, okay-- they deserve to lose. But do we conservatives deserve at least two years of Congressional Democratic rule? Does America deserve that?

Our Congressmen may deserve to lose, but we don't. And, given the stakes in the War on Terror, I don't know if we can afford to lose.

Let's Emulate Sweden: And elect a cener-right legislature, why don't we?

posted by Ace at 02:09 PM

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