Posted by
SLW on Monday, November 13, 2006 9:48:31 PM
A couple of years ago Rush was talking about how Bush was in the process of beating the Democrats at their own game and that they would be in the minority for a long time. El Rushbo would jokingly say, "we can’t get rid of all of them, we need a few to remind us of who they are."
So, what went wrong?
When Bush became Governor of Texas by beating a popular Democrat incumbent, Ann Richards, he worked with the Democrats to get his agenda accomplished. Then when he was re- elected he brought in Republican majorities in the House and Senate. In the election in Texas last week we held the Governorship, the House and the Senate. Texas is still solidly red, thanks to Bush.
Why didn’t this happen in Washington? I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that the conservative media, Fox News, talk radio, conservative pundits and many conservative blogs were partially responsible for the losses that the Republican Party incurred.
Let me explain. We now know that the MSM is an arm of the Democrat party. They don’t even try to hide it anymore. The assault that they undertook on this president via books, movies, news reports and so on., never stopped. There was a brief intermission on and after 9/11, but of course that didn’t last.
On our side, the media tries to be " fair and balanced." The Conservative spokesmen feel that they need to criticize the President and Republicans in order to prove that they are not biased. Another problem is that the conservative media has to play to it's audience, the conservative base. The country at large is right of center, but not right of right.
During the last year leading up to the election, the only topics of conversation on the radio, the blogs, by conservative writers and talking heads, was everything that they thought Bush was doing wrong. It started with the Harriet Miers nomination, then the Ports issue and finally immigration. There was no willingness on the part of the conservative media to compromise. It was their way or the highway. (They finally realized what was happening and changed course for the last couple of months before the election, but it was too late.)
When Bush’s poll numbers started tanking, the "cowardly" congressmen and senators pulled away from Bush’s agenda and began distancing themselves from him. I believe that if they had followed Bush’s lead and pushed for social security reform, immigration reform, led the way to more tax cuts, supported the war and Donald Rumsfeld, that they could not have been beaten.
I am currently reading many blogs and commentaries that opine that we did not get our message out. I think we did. The message was that we will not support our President and the Republicans if they do not do everything exactly the way we want it done. No compromise any time, any place.
The voters got the message.
SLW