A Tough Year for Republicans
2006 was not a good year to be from the right. It seemed like everything bad that could have happened did. The war is a mess, despite Democrats freezing bribe money, the “culture of corruption” was successfully marketed and bought by the voters, Congressman Mark Foley was exposed as a sexual predator. The president and party leader chose blind loyalty to his cabinet and let his party sink in the midterm elections.
How bad was it? Firstly, the economy is flying through the roof. This last quarter the misery index (inflation % + unemployment %) has sunk to pre-net bubble bursting at around 6.4. The Dow Jones is bulldozing through the record books. However no believes the message. They don’t trust the truth that the economy is doing as well and in some areas, better than in the 1990s.
No one seems to care that DCCC wonder-boy, Rahm Emanuel and the DCCC communication Director, who shopped around the story knew about the Foley e-mails in the fall of last year and sat on it instead of reporting it to the Ethics committee knowing that they were sitting on a political gold mine. No one cares that the bi-partisan House Ethics committee cleared Republican Leadership of any wrong doing, despite the Left and mainstream media calling Republicans hypocrites for shielding this guy despite being the party of morals and values.
But at the end of the day it was Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. And there is no one the party can blame for this mess besides the Republican administration. GOP members were good soldiers and followed Bush to the end. And monopoly of power is over.
It is just that bad. Why trust the party that led us into Iraq? This election was just one of this instances when the party just had to take it on the chin. It didn’t help that the President did nothing to help the results by firing Rumsfeld the day after the election and not three weeks before. It was a very bad year to a Republican, and it might take a few years to win back the confidence of the people. This must be the focus of the party for for ’07 or it will be a Dem sweep in ‘08.
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