For Steve Newton….

Filed in National by on October 23, 2008

Radley Balko makes the Libertarian case for why the Republicans must lose.  Mike Matthews has often stated to me that one of the reasons he is for Obama and the Democrats this time is because the Republicans must be punished for Bush.   Balko agrees, if only to get the party back to “conservative” principles Goldwater and Reagan.   Now, I think those principles have been shown to have failed spectactularly, given the current state of the economy, but at least we can agree, the Republicans must be punished.   And while the loss will allow the Republican to clean up their internal mess through a wonderous (for us) civil war, we Democrats will clean up their mess across the country.

The Republican Party has exiled its Goldwater-Reagan wing and given up all pretense of any allegiance to limited government. In the last eight years, the GOP has given us a monstrous new federal bureaucracy in the Department of Homeland Security. In the prescription drug benefit, it’s given us the largest new federal entitlement since the Johnson administration. Federal spending—even on items not related to war or national security—has soared. And we now get to watch as the party that’s supposed to be “free market” nationalizes huge chunks of the economy’s financial sector…

While I’m not thrilled at the prospect of an Obama administration (especially with a friendly Congress), the Republicans still need to get their clocks cleaned in two weeks, for a couple of reasons. First, they had their shot at holding power, and they failed.

They’ve failed in staying true to their principles of limited government and free markets. They’ve failed in preventing elected leaders of their party from becoming corrupted by the trappings of power, and they’ve failed to hold those leaders accountable after the fact. Congressional Republicans failed to rein in the Bush administration’s naked bid to vastly expand the power of the presidency (a failure they’re going to come to regret should Obama take office in January). They failed to apply due scrutiny and skepticism to the administration’s claims before undertaking Congress’ most solemn task—sending the nation to war. I could go on.

As for the Bush administration, the only consistent principle we’ve seen from the White House over the last eight years is that of elevating the American president (and, I guess, the vice president) to that of an elected dictator. That isn’t hyperbole. This administration believes that on any issue that can remotely be tied to foreign policy or national security (and on quite a few other issues as well), the president has boundless, limitless, unchecked power to do anything he wants. They believe that on these matters, neither Congress nor the courts can restrain him.

That’s the second reason the GOP needs to lose. American voters need to send a clear, convincing repudiation of these dangerous ideas.

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  1. Steve Newton says:

    He’s exactly right.

    Thanks, I hadn’t seen this.

    The best book-length treatment of the decline of Libertarianism in the GOP is Ryan Sager’s The Elephant in the Room if anybody’s interested; that goes through late 2004-2005 and, intriguingly, essentially predicts the GOP losses in 2006

  2. Steve Newton says:

    Oh, and I’m glad to see you read Reason….

  3. vyllyness says:

    The payback should be on Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Chris Dodd and of course Chuckie Schumer…Need lots of that “changenism, sheeeattt.”

  4. Donsquishy says:

    your boys had their chance and they fucked up the country good, lets give our way a try for 8 years and see who does a better job.

  5. For some reason I have this horrible feeling that everything in the next four years are going to get more polarized, more spiteful, and worse off for everyone.

    It might just be my paranoid skepticism talking, but for some reason I have this feeling that we are circling the drain.

  6. jason330 says:

    vyllyness is kidding of course.

    100 Barney Franks could not do half of the damage to the country that conservatives have done.

    It is as if Bush and Cheney were Chinese agents or something.

  7. Unstable Isotope says:

    I agree Brian. The Republican party can go two ways, but it appears that the moderate Republicans are leaving rather than taking over. So, will the Republican party become the party of a few?

    I just read about Obama endorsements from Scott McClellan (!) and former Minnesota governor (1991-1999) Arne Carlson. I also just read that Goldwaters’s grandchildren endorsed Obama as well.

  8. cassandra_m says:

    I think that the polarization depends on three things:
    1. How long and deep the recession is (and there are those thinking we have 18 months or more of worse pain to go).
    2. How close the election really is.
    3. The media reorienting itself to react to every Drudge bit or to the latest fax blast of RNC talking points.

  9. Unstable Isotope says:

    That’s a good question Cassandra – will the media return to the witch-hunting 90s?

  10. The media needs to stop reporting what is in their email box, and get out in the field and dig up a story. They rely way too much on talking points and leaks to do their work.

    We need more reporters, less studio analysts. Get dirty, make some enemies, make the politicians fear them when approached…