The Democrats think they won November 7th. The Republican National Committee points out that the GOP lost far fewer seats than is typical in a mid-term election of this type, so in a sense they won. The media certainly won, in the sense that their party now controls the House & the Senate. But I’ll tell you who really won: Conservatives.
The Democrats think they won November 7th. The Republican National Committee points out that the GOP lost far fewer seats than is typical in a mid-term election of this type, so in a sense they won. The media certainly won, in the sense that their party now controls the House & the Senate. But I’ll tell you who really won: Conservatives.
The Democrats didn’t win they way they think they did. Sure, they gained seats. But they think this election was a repudiation of the war in Iraq. They couldn’t be more wrong. The American public did not vote for their representatives based on their positions on the war in Iraq. They voted as they always do in mid-term elections. They based their vote on domestic issues.
What are the most pressing domestic issues? The economy was a non-issue. It’s doing great. If that had been all that was going on, Republicans would still be in control. But there were two major issues where the Republicans were vulnerable, and those issues took them down. Those were government spending and the immigration problem.
The Democrats are the Tax and Spend Party. For the last six years the Republicans have been the Spend and Spend Party. Republicans have cut taxes, and tax revenues have jumped because the lower tax burden allowed people to make more money. In other words, lower taxes always mean more tax revenue. The Republicans did use a lot of that money to cut the deficit in half three years earlier than the President promised they would (see “I Blame President Bush”, www.conservativetruth.org/article.php?id=3615). But they could have completely paid it off. Instead, they spent our tax money like drunken Democrats.
Now, obviously there is a difference between a Tax and Spend Party and a Spend and Spend Party. But it’s a subtle difference, and the voters weren’t interested in subtleties this election. Conservatives in particular felt betrayed by Republican spending.
The other pressing domestic problem was immigration. The Republicans adopted a Democrat solution to this problem, and it backfired on them. When faced with a problem, the Democrats solve it by saying it isn’t a problem! It doesn’t work for them, and it sure didn’t work for the Republicans. They said, “Well, sure we have 11 or 12 million illegal aliens in our country. But they’re helping the economy by doing jobs Americans won’t do.” Of course, that’s a lie that the voters saw through. Americans will do any job that pays a living wage. They just can’t compete with illegals who live twelve men to a house and share one car that doesn’t even have insurance on it.
What about the Republican’s claim that they didn’t really lose, because they actually did much better than they should have, based on historical precedent? Here’s what RNC Chair Ken Mehlman wrote to me: “Going into the 2006 cycle, we knew that we faced an enormous challenge. The party of the incumbent President typically loses 29 House seats and three Senate seats during the second midterm. Since World War II, this average loss is even higher.”
All of that is true. The Republicans lost fewer seats than they should have, based on history. But winning is winning, and losing is still losing. And the Republicans lost.
So if the Republicans lost, and the Democrats didn’t really win, who did? As I said above, the mainstream liberal media won because they supported their party, and it gained seats. The media is actually the Public Relations Department of the Democrat Party. They ignored news that was positive regarding Republicans. And when the Democrats dragged out dirt on Mark Foley and Ted Haggert (information which they had had, at least in Foley’s case, for years) at the last minute to influence the election, they obeyed the Democrat Party bosses and ran the dirt over and over and over and over again.
But although the media’s influence increased the number of seats the Democrats won, at least the House, and possible the Senate would have been lost anyway, because the Republicans have lost their way.
The real winner last Tuesday was the Conservative Movement. “Wait a minute! I thought Conservatives WERE Republicans! If the Republicans lost, the Conservatives lost, didn’t they?” No. Conservatives do not equal Republicans.
Are all Liberals Democrats? No. Many Liberals belong to the Communist Party USA, the Socialist Party, the Green Party and various other fringe organizations. Most Democrats are Liberals, but not all.
In the same way, most Republicans are Conservatives. But you can also find Conservatives who vote for Libertarian and Constitution Party candidates, and many who register as Independents.
I am not a Republican. I am a Conservative. However, I usually vote Republican because in the main they stand for the values in which I believe. The Republican Party stands for the protection of marriage and the family, protecting unborn babies, freedom of religion, lower taxes, less government, and a strong national defense policy.
The Democrat Party stands for exactly the opposite of these values. But they know that most Americans (including a large number of their own Party members) are conservative by nature. So they lie about what they stand for to get elected, then they vote the opposite of they way they campaigned.
Here is the essence of the problem. Both parties have both Liberal and Conservative members. The Democrats have more Liberals, and almost all of their leaders are Liberals. The Republicans have a much higher percentage of Conservatives, and almost all of their leaders are Conservatives.
But things are starting to change. The Republican Party has forgotten what it once stood for. Over the last six years they have done a great job with the War on Terror (no more attacks since 9/11), the economy (it’s booming, and unemployment is the lowest ever), and lowering taxes passed by Democrats in previous sessions of congress (the Bush tax cuts which the Dems have promised to undo).
But as I said earlier, the Republicans have broken faith with us in their lavish spending of our hard-earned dollars, and by failing to protect our borders. True Conservatives feel abandoned by the Republican Party.
If Conservatives had believed that the Republicans were both fiscally and socially conservative, the Republicans would have retained both Houses. That is because there are more Conservatives than Liberals in this nation. They could have come out in huge numbers and blown the Democrats away, like they did when they believed in the Republicans’ Contract With America in 1994 and ended decades of Democrat control of Congress. By the way, that was a mid-term election with Clinton in the White House, and the Democrats lost FAR more seats then than did the Republicans in this election.
So what did the Conservatives do? Many stayed home. Interestingly, many also voted for Conservative Democrats. Yes, Virginia, there ARE Conservative Democrats (but there is still no Santa Claus). There were a surprising number of very Conservative Democrats running in this race, Democrats who are fiscally Conservative, who are Pro-Life, and who understand that lower taxes mean a better economy for everyone. Conservatives also helped vote out some very Liberal Republicans.
We don’t have time to mention all of them, but allow me to give you two great examples. Liberal Republican Lincoln Chafee was a RINO (Republican In Name Only). He was soundly trounced in this election, and I for one was not unhappy to see him go. Joe Lieberman was rejected by his own Democrat Party because he was too Conservative. Imagine a political party that would fail to re-nominate an 18-year Senator who had been their Vice-Presidential candidate! As you know, he ran as an Independent, and whipped the Liberal Democrat they put up instead of Joe.
One side note: The Democrats are gloating because they think they have control. But they are going to have many surprises with some of these new, more conservative Democrats. The Democrat leadership is going to find that it cannot control the voting of the conservative Democrats. They are going to have far less control than they think they will.
More than anything, this election was a wake-up call for Republicans. If Conservatives had allowed them to retain power, they would in essence have been saying, “What you have been doing for the last six years is OK.” And much of what they have been doing is definitely NOT OK with Conservatives. The Republican Party needs to do some serious soul-searching in the light of this defeat.
One of two things is going to happen over the next few years. Either the Republicans will return to their Conservative roots, and America will support them again; or we will have two Liberal parties in our nation. (There is no chance the Democrats will become a Conservative party, because their leadership is solidly Socialist.) If we do end up with two mainline parties that lean Left, then a third party with solid Conservative values will emerge, and it will win, because most Americans are Conservatives at heart.
Dr. Tom Barrett has been an ordained minister for 30 years. He has written for local and national publications for most of his life, and has authored several non-fiction books. He has been interviewed on many TV and radio programs, and speaks at seminars nationwide. Tom is the editor and publisher of Conservative Truth, an email newsletter read by over fifty thousand weekly which focuses on moral and political issues from a Biblical viewpoint.
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