Republicans: Another ominous defeat

“They said the first was an outlier. The second, a fluke,” said Jim Tankersley in the Chicago Tribune. But when Republicans last week lost their third special election for a vacant congressional seat this year, they had to admit they were staring at a trend that could spell disaster in November. In an election to fill a vacant seat in Mississippi, in a conservative district that had backed President Bush overwhelmingly in 2004, Democrat Travis Childers won in a walk—just as Democrats did earlier in “safe” GOP districts in Illinois and Louisiana. This time, Republicans threw everything they could at Childers, including TV ads linking him to Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. With Republicans already a minority in the House and Senate, GOP leaders could not deny that something was deeply wrong. “What we’ve got right now is a deficiency in our message,” said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, “and a loss of confidence by the American people.”

That’s putting it mildly, said Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post. This election is shaping up as “one of those watershed years in American politics,” one that will bring the Reagan era to an end. President Bush has utterly discredited the conservative theory that government is itself the problem, and now voters associate the Republicans with a disastrous war, a collapsing economy, and a laundry list of incompetence and corruption. With eight out of 10 voters saying the country is on the wrong track, “evidence suggests that Americans are tired of a government that is slavishly beholden to a rigid do-nothing ideology.” Actually, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, Republicans are being punished for straying from their conservative roots. Congressional Republicans were booted out in 2006 because of their “earmarking scandals, spending excesses, and overall wallowing in the Beltway status quo.” Unless they run on lower taxes, fiscal responsibility, and job-friendly economic policies, “they will be routed again in November.’’

Not necessarily, said William Kristol in The New York Times. While the party’s congressional prospects are poor, presumptive GOP nominee John McCain may be uniquely situated to survive a bad Republican year. On issues ranging from national security to gay marriage, McCain happens to be more mainstream than the liberal Barack Obama. And history shows that voters often elect Republican presidents when Democrats are in control of Congress. From 1968 to 1988, Democrats dominated Congress, yet Republicans won five of six presidential elections. With Obama alienating Middle America, it just might happen again.

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