Ranting Rev nails it

As a Goldwater/Reagan conservative- think of a Libertarian who doesn’t want to legalize crystal meth- I’ve been dismayed by big-spending, homophobic Republican congressmen. Being more devoted to a cause than a party, I’ve been hoping that Republicans would loose seats, so that we old-timers can reclaim a party that’s more interested in foreign policy and sound currency than who marries whom. The problem has been that the Democratic party is not cooperating!

For four years I’ve been begging the Democrats to come up with a party line and campaign on it- but for six solid years their candidates have run on a single issue: Bush is a doody-head. Some of the more sophisticated have added that he wasn’t elected, he was appointed... but when the chips were down, they still joined hands and chanted “Bush is a doody-head”. When I correctly predicted the last two election cycles in Beliefnet and CFUU and AUC forums, saying that you can’t win votes by spewing hatred and venom, that incumbents can only be unseated by earnest-sounding candidates with real ideas, I was ridiculed. When I said that you can’t win by saying, “Your man is a Nazi and you’re a fool- oh, by the way, can I have your vote?”, I got more than one response of “He just wants us to stop telling the truth so that the conservatives can call us names themselves.” Well, a liberal is now echoing my sentiments: The Ranting Rev: Can These Bones Live? - A Sermon for the Democratic Party

How did the Republicans win control of Congress in the first place? Yes, yes, I hear you- by lying. But that glib answer is simply wrong. They won because of Newt’s “Contract with America”. And don’t bother telling me they broke the contract- that’ll simply prove you still haven’t gotten the point. They had a unified message, they talked about issues, not their opponents- in short, they sounded like statesmen, whether they were or not. That wins votes. That wins elections. And that’s a lesson the Democratic party has still not learned. Back on December 10, ‘05, I predicted the following in comments on the ChaliceBlog: “I now predict that if there's not a big shake-up the Democratic party leadership within the next three months, Republicans will retain majority in both houses in the upcoming election. I further predict that if Republicans retain control of Congress, a Republican will be elected president in 2008.” I stand by it, absent a major disaster like a second Katrina occurring. Not because the Republicans have earned it; they haven’t- but because the Democratic party has been throwing it away. The triumvirate of Howard Dean, Michael Moore, and Moveon.org have so crippled the Democratic party that a conspiracy minded person might wonder if they were undercover Republican operatives. Had someone like “The Happy Warrior” Humphrey or Pat Moynihan had been the party chairman, they’d control both houses of Congress by now.

Why am I, a conservative, so concerned with saving the Democratic party? Because I want to separate the religious right from the traditional right, and that will never happen as long as Republicans keep winning under the current coalition. Because I’m worried that the Democrats will decide that they have to cater to the religious right, too- I’ve seen some evidence of it. This country is ready to elect a Libertarian, but neither party will nominate one- and the Libertarian Party can never elect one while the two major parties control “election reform”.