A lack of leadership and no clear, positive message could prevent Republicans from taking advantage of a golden opportunity for big gains in the midterm elections.
The political fortunes of the Republican Party give every appearance of rising from the ashes, like the mythological phoenix of old. Aided by the unpopularity of the radical Democratic agenda and the nakedly overbearing efforts by that party to ram this agenda down the nation’s collective throats, the Republicans are poised to roar back onto the national political scene in November in a way reminiscent of 1994.
Indeed, the talk is generally not about whether the GOP will take back the House, but by how many seats. Regaining control of the Senate, similarly, is viewed by many as an attainable goal for the Republicans. This sort of talk is aided by favorable polling, not the least of which being Rasmussen’s gold standard tracking polls, which have consistently shown that the GOP holds a decent lead in generic preference on congressional ballots — something that bodes quite well for Republican fortunes this fall. Following on spectacular victories in 2009 in which they took back the governor’s mansions in New Jersey and Virginia, there seems to be good reason for this optimism.
However, we should never underestimate the power of the Republican Party leadership to ruin a good thing.
The Republican Party can certainly still blow it and lose in November. Indeed, there are a number of disconcerting trends that potentially point in that direction, and these trends help to reinforce the gut feeling I am getting that the GOP is losing the momentum that it had coming into this spring.
First, there is the squishiness that seems to be nothing short of genetic in the present GOP “leadership.” This ruling caste never seems to miss the opportunity to apologize for a principled stand taken by a truly conservative elected official, to bemoan the resurgence of conservative activism in and around the party, or to condemn some element of their own party in Democrat-like terms. How else can we explain National Republican Senatorial Committee chair John Cornyn’s statements to the press announcing that the GOP might not try to repeal that there health care takeover after all, if they retake the Congress? Remember the health care takeover? The one that a majority of Americans hated? I can’t imagine that this won the GOP any points with either their own base or with crucial independent voters who despised this legislation to almost the same degree that conservative Republicans did.
