I’ve taken the position for a while that I actually want the Democrats to win control of the house.  I say this because I’m a Republican, not despite of that fact.  I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged on this specific topic; I know I’ve commented on it on other blogs.

The Republicans in the Beltway have lost their conservative compass.  They spend recklessly.  Ethics is a four letter word to many of them.  They have either refused to try or have been incapable of passing meaningful legislation.  Tax reform?  Nothing.  Entitlements?  More.  Education?  More government bureaucracy instead of parental empowerment.  In summary, they have abandoned nearly all of the principles that propelled them to power in 1994.

Republicans across the country, including me, are disillusioned.  Should we reward these scoundrels by reelecting them?  Doing so would only imply our consent.  The right wing talk show circuit attempts to scare Republicans into voting by saying, “Can you imagine Speaker Pelosi?  Do you want John Conyers drafting letters of impeachment?”  My answers: yes, but I don’t care and sure, I hope he does.

The Dems winning the House would probably be the best thing that could happen to the Republicans (I’m talking about regular people, not the party leadership).  Start those impeachment proceedings - we saw how well that worked for Republicans with Clinton.  Let them pass harmful legislation.  It will die either in the Senate or at the tip of the President veto pen.

In two years the Dem debacle in the House will serve the Republicans well in the battle for the White House.  Politicians and their operatives can’t see past the current election.  I tend to have a long term view.  The politicians want to win this battle, but I want to win the war.

All that was a preface for one of the better op-eds I have read in a while.  The reason I say it is so good is because it parroted my exact rationale for why I want the Dems to win the House, but it does so much more eloquently and throws in a few more positives.  For example, the Dems still will have absolutely no more say in judicial appointments and confirmations than they do now.  Somewhat surprisingly, this little gem was in the New York Times.

Read it here.  Excerpts below.

It would be worse for conservatives if Republicans actually gained seats. The Congressional wing of the party lost its reformist zeal years ago and has been trying to win elections based on pork and incumbency. An election victory would reward that strategy, leaving the congressmen even less interested in restraining spending, reforming government programs and revamping the tax code. Political incompetence and complacency, sporadic corruption and widespread cynicism: having paid a price for none of it, Republicans would indulge in more of the same.

…

A straight loss, on the other hand, would make the Republicans hungrier and sharpen their wits. Freed from the obligation of cobbling together thin majorities for watered-down legislation, Republicans would be able to stand for something attractive. Some conservatives worry that Republican officialdom will see defeat as a reason to turn left. But that didn’t happen after the last major Republican defeat in 1992. Then, conservatives were able to persuade the party that it had not lost power because it was too far right. They would make the same case this winter, but with more voices in the news media than they had back then.

The Republicans have been steadily tacking left consistently.  That is the reason we are unhappy.  Most Dems would scoff at the thought that Republicans are moving to the left.  On some issues, like the war on terror, Republicans have largely maintained their ideals.  The reason that it may not seem like they are tacking left is because the Dems have used it as an opportunity to actually move farther left, keeping the ideological gap the same.

House Democrats could initiate countless investigations of the administration and schedule votes to make Republicans look bad. But they could not do much to affect either the conduct of foreign policy or the composition of the courts, which are the areas where their most fervent supporters most desperately want influence. If the Democrats try to appease their base by impeaching the president, they will probably increase President Bush’s poll numbers, much as Republicans once improved President Bill Clinton’s.

…

There is also the matter of the 2008 elections. Do Republicans really want to go into 2008 running a unified government? The last time an election maintained unified party control from one presidency to another was in 1928. And the 2008 elections matter more than the 2006 elections, because, again, the president has more say over foreign policy and the courts than the House does. If Democrats win the House now, the next Republican presidential candidate will be able to run against Nancy Pelosi and the liberal committee chairmen who would suddenly be in the headlines.

That, my friends, is why Speaker Pelosi doesn’t scare me.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Thursday, September 14th, 2006 at 2:09 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.