So says Ankle-Biting Pundits anyway.
Personally, I have a feeling that the Abrahamoff scandal will be a bipartisan affair – Abrahamoff was perfectly willing to use corrupt Democrats as well as Republicans. Those involved in the scandal are going to have a lot of explaining to do, and as well they should. (The Weekly Standard has a tale right out of The Sopranos involving Abrahmoff’s Indian casino lobbying.) Were the Democrats not terminally clueless and utterly out of step with mainstream America, those warnings about 2006 being a repeat of 2004 might hold some water. Unfortanately for the Democrats, and the country, we don’t have a sensible opposition party in this country at the moment.
I’m still predicting that the GOP will lose ground in 2006, and it’s hard to argue that they shouldn’t. The GOP’s fiscal irresponsibility and loss of perspective have been deeply distressing to conservatives. Many conservatives, myself included, would rather see a diminished Republican majority than see a Republican Party that has lost its moorings in small government and fiscal rectitude. Unless the GOP gets truly serious about returning to Main Street rather than K Street values, the only thing they have going for them is the fact that the Democrats are orders of magnitude worse – and that isn’t anything to crow about.
Unfortunately for the Republicans, “Main Street values” run decidedly against GOP orthodoxy.
You’re almost certainly right that the Abramoff scandal will touch some Democrats as well, but the title of your piece flies in the face of your New Year’s prediction regarding at least one GOP incumbent up to his eyebrows in the Abramoff scandal….Conrad Burns of Montana, who you just declared less-than-vulnerable despite being one of the Abramoff “Fab Four” implicated in early news releases. Rethinking our positions, are we?
Except for the fact where that isn’t remotely true. If anything, the Democrats are increasingly the party of the coastal elites. The Democrats are far, far, far out of step with the mainstream of the country, and keep embracing their own far left.
Not yet. If Burns is implicated in anything other than a bad choice of supporters, perhaps, but not at the moment.
Where do you get the idea that Democrats are out of step? If anything, the brand of fundamentalist social conservatism advocated by the GOP base is what is remarkably rejected by a vast majority of Americans. Most Americans support, for instance, the rights of women to terminate pregnancy through abortion (at least in some situations) and marriage-equivalent protections for homosexual couples.
If “elite” means standing up for equality, freedom, and personal self-determination, then color me a “coastal elite” without the coast. Mark is right to point out that on almost any Main Street in the country, the values they cherish are far more likely to echo Democratic party lines than Republican ones.
Internal Democratic polling has said as much:
Democrats can keep trying to convince themselves that they’re the party that represents Middle America – but that doesn’t make it true. On cultural and social issues, the Democrats are increasingly radical and increasingly distant from the values of the American public. In fact, one of the single strongest factors in GOP voter identity is being married and having children – and the Democrats are increasingly a coastal party, increasingly liberal (and conservatives outnumber liberals by a significant margin), and increasingly out of step with the needs and concerns of American families on cultural issues.