The Rout of the Right?

If you're any kind of progressive, you've gotta love it when Time magazine has a piece called "How the Right Went Wrong" with a doctored photo of Ronald Reagan shedding a tear over what has become of his party, or when TownHall.com has articles entitled "Is Conservatism Dying?" and "5 Things Republicans Can Learn From the Democrats."

But is this too good to be true? Granted, the Bush administration is in free-fall and looks to go down in history as one of the worst administrations ever, but does that necessarily mean that conservatism is in free-fall as well? Well, let's take a look.

The three most prominent contenders for the Republican nomination for president in 2008 are far from your garden variety right-wing conservatives. John McCain is deeply distrusted by the right, in spite of all the nauseating things he's done to appease them. Rudy Giuliani is admired for his admittedly sterling performance during 9/11 but do the people on the right who idolize him have any idea what his stands are on social issues? Do they know that he's pro-gun control, pro-choice and pro-gay rights? Or that he likes to wear women's clothing on occasion (one of them slapped on a recent cover of National Review)? Or that he's on his third wife -- and that his first wife was his cousin? And Mitt Romney, who is admittedly telegenic (and still on his first wife) has "changed his mind" on so many issues that you can almost write the "flip-flopper" ads for his opponents in the upcoming primaries.

So where are the true believers? Why haven't people like Mike Huckabee or Sam Brownback made any traction? Is it just name recognition? Will they move up in the field as the (no doubt endless) debates start happening? Or has the right-wing of the party simply written off this election cycle and decided to regroup and take their chances on 2012 or 2016, either with Jeb Bush or someone else?

I'm not sure I envy whoever wins the 2008 presidential election -- especially if they're a Democrat. Iraq is still going to be a disaster and it could arguably be worse than it is now -- and the incoming president will probably not have the option of walking away from a stalemate and calling it victory, the way Eisenhower did in Korea. And I'm starting to think that the American economy is poised to go right into the toilet, so they could easily have a major recession on their hands as they come into office. Not a pretty picture, is it?

But let's not get complaisant. The Democrats hold control of the Senate by exactly one vote, and the GOP still has the White House until January, 2009. This is still a 50/50 country and Democrats have a lot of work to do if they're going to convince Americans that they can clean up the mess that the right-wing Republicans have made of this country, among others.

Tom Moran