What The GOP Is Losing

Entering the weekend before his
midterms, George Bush and his party appear fated to lose
the House they have held for a dozen years. The Senate
is on a knife`s edge.

The latest polls continue to show
that by 52 percent to 37 percent Americans wish to see a
Democratic takeover. Approval of Congress has never been
lower. Americans think the nation is on the wrong track.
Support for the war in Iraq has collapsed to a third of
the nation.

What went wrong? Certainly, on
three

traditional Republican issues—strong military,
conservative judges and lower taxes—the GOP remains
America`s Party.

How do we know? Because no Democrat
in a close race is calling,

Mondale-like, for higher taxes or attacking Bush for
elevating judges

John Roberts and Sam Alito to the Supreme Court. In
the tight Senate races in Tennessee and Virginia,
Democratic nominees Harold Ford and

Jim Webb are outspokenly pro-defense.

On immigration, where

Bush aligns with Kennedy-McCain, his party has
abandoned him. The Republican House

stands for border security, no amnesty and no new
guest-worker program. Nor is this a losing issue. Even
Hillary Clinton voted for

700 miles of security fence on the Mexican border.

What, then, are the causes of
Republican malaise?

First is the perception the GOP is
no longer a virtuous party that seeks to live up to
principles and a high standard of public ethics. The
adventures of the Abramoff Gang,

Mark Foley, Duke Cunningham and his
poker-party pals, of pork barrel and

bridges to

nowhere have demoralized the Republican base and
disgusted Middle America. There is a feeling, even on
the Right, that if this crowd is run out of Dodge, its
expulsion will not be unwarranted.

Second, while the macro economy
seems to be firing on all eight cylinders—the Dow has
risen above 12,000, and the Misery Index of inflation
plus unemployment has fallen to the lowest levels in
modern times—not
all Americans are participating in the prosperity.

Employment in health care has grown
by almost 2 million, but some 3 million manufacturing
jobs have vanished. There has been a population
explosion among billionaires, but the real median wage
of a

male worker has not risen in decades. The daily
closure of factories here, as more and more

Chinese goods show up at

Wal-Mart, points to inescapable consequences: The
price of the GOP`s free-trade-uber-alles ideology
is the loss of the

Reagan Democrats.

In Ohio, which was indispensable to
Bush is 2000 and 2004, free trade is a millstone around
the GOP neck. If Bush loses the House or Senate,
free-trade globalism goes on the shelf. Not only will
Bush fail to win congressional support of a

Doha Round trade treaty, he will be denied any
renewal of fast-track authority. The new Congress will
not rubber-stamp trade treaties, but demand a voice and
votes on any new deal the Bushites negotiate on behalf
of

Corporate America.

But if Republicans are swept from
power, the reason will be Iraq. By two to one, Americans
have reached the conclusion that the war was a mistake,
that taking down Saddam was not worth the price in
blood, that the management of the war has been as
botched as

John Kerry`s joke, that it is time to bring the
troops home and let Iraqis do the fighting for their own
freedom, democracy and independence.

And the more seats Republicans lose
Tuesday, the greater will be the pressure on the party
and president to find an early exit.

Yet about the war, America remains
divided and conflicted. For the roaring Republican
reception to Bush`s calls for "victory" testifies to
another truth. While most American wish we had never
gone in and want out, America

does not want to lose the war as

we lost Vietnam.

Neither party knows a way to
accomplish what America wants: to leave Iraq without
losing the war. And the reason neither party knows how
to do it is because it cannot be done. Like a patient
suffering from cancer, we want an end to the "chemo"—the
awful news daily coming out of Iraq—but we do not want
the consequences.

What, then, has cost the Republican
Party its patrimony?

The answer is, first, hubris.
Dominating Congress for a dozen years, the GOP began to
behave with the same haughtiness as those they
displaced. They forgot who sent them here, and why.

Second, ideology. Bush Republicans
refuse even to reconsider, despite contradictory
evidence, what their ideology teaches: that

free trade is best, that U.S. power is invincible,
that all the world

wants to be like us, that our motives are always
pure and theirs malevolent.

Tuesday will bring the party back
to earth. But it will not solve the crises that beset
the country. For while the Democrats may be the
political alternative, the Democrats` ideology of big
government liberalism is even more bankrupt.

COPYRIGHT

CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Patrick J. Buchanan needs


no introduction to VDARE.COM
readers; his book

State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and
Conquest of America,

can be ordered from
Amazon.com.