As much as I'd like to congratulate Gordon Smith for coming to his senses, it's not too surprising and seems like a blatant attempt to save himself in the '08 election. Oregon has traditionally been a haven for "moderate" Republicans, and rejecting Iraq and Bush is mandatory to try to keep any pretense of independence or moderation. The only problem is that this legacy goes back decades to when such politicians (Morse, McCall, Hatfield) could genuinely claim these qualities. Beginning in the late 80s, mirroring the national level, the hard-right grabbed control of the party in Oregon, and eventually succeeded in driving it deep into permanent minority status with a constant stream of anti-gay, anti-abortion, and censorship measures that were wildly out of step with the political mainstream here, leaving mostly-secular right-wingers like Gordon Smith somewhat stranded.
Their anti-tax faction kept them partially afloat by riding the western libertarian streak through the booming 1990s up to the point where this was a truly "purple" state in 2000, but when the economic good times ran out, they imploded. 2002 and 2004 weren't good years for them, but 2006 was an absolute slaughter. Republicans hold only Smith's Senate seat, one of five Reps, no statewide offices, have lost the State House of Representatives (31-29) for the first time in 16 years, and would graduate to a completely useless super-duper-minority by losing any one of the 11 remaining State Senate seats (of 30) they still hold.
10:06 AM, December 20, 2006
This diary by BooMan23 on Kos lays out why he thinks the impeachment of Bush and Cheney will actually happen: So, the first reason why I think Republicans know Bush has to go is that the situation demands it and the logic is compelling. The second reason is that it is in their best interests. They have no reason to back this President in a disastrous foreign policy that they do not see as working. They do not want to go into 2008 still defending this President on the war. I'm not as sanguine about impeachment possibilities as this BooMan23, but I do agree that Republicans don't want Iraq around their necks in 2008. It was an unambiguous drag on their performance in 2006, and in two years people will only be more fed up, more wanting to get out, more angry at those who got us into this mess. If Iraq is still an issue in 2008, the Republicans will get an electoral shellacking that will make their decisive rebuke in 2006 look as mild as Republican spin-meisters have been claiming it is.
It's pretty clear at this point that Bush is not going to get us out of there by Nov 2008. He's talking about increasing our troop presence. Republicans up for re-election in '08 are already having public fits. Probably the most outspoken of these has been Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon), who said the war effort "may even be criminal".
Given the horrors that are going on in Iraq, it seems callous to be analyzing the US domestic political fallout. But US domestic politics is what got us there in the first place, and I hope it can now be used to get us out, disasterous as that will probably be (but less disasterous than staying). Here's what David Brooks picutures happening: So what’s going to happen? These Republicans do not want to run in 2008 with Iraq hanging over. They never want to face another election like that. So at some point, six months, eight months, there’s going to be men in gray suits. There’s going to be a delegation going into that White House saying to President Bush, “You are not destroying our party over this.” And Bush will push back. But that’s going to be the, the tension. Talk about world—American support for the war, it’s Republican support in Washington for the war that the president needs to worry about.Let's hope those "men in gray suits" do a better job of kicking Bush's ass than James Baker and the ISG.
posted by Zachary Drake at 4:37 AM on Dec 20, 2006
"Will the Republicans eventually want to impeach Bush?"
1 Comment -
As much as I'd like to congratulate Gordon Smith for coming to his senses, it's not too surprising and seems like a blatant attempt to save himself in the '08 election. Oregon has traditionally been a haven for "moderate" Republicans, and rejecting Iraq and Bush is mandatory to try to keep any pretense of independence or moderation. The only problem is that this legacy goes back decades to when such politicians (Morse, McCall, Hatfield) could genuinely claim these qualities. Beginning in the late 80s, mirroring the national level, the hard-right grabbed control of the party in Oregon, and eventually succeeded in driving it deep into permanent minority status with a constant stream of anti-gay, anti-abortion, and censorship measures that were wildly out of step with the political mainstream here, leaving mostly-secular right-wingers like Gordon Smith somewhat stranded.
Their anti-tax faction kept them partially afloat by riding the western libertarian streak through the booming 1990s up to the point where this was a truly "purple" state in 2000, but when the economic good times ran out, they imploded. 2002 and 2004 weren't good years for them, but 2006 was an absolute slaughter. Republicans hold only Smith's Senate seat, one of five Reps, no statewide offices, have lost the State House of Representatives (31-29) for the first time in 16 years, and would graduate to a completely useless super-duper-minority by losing any one of the 11 remaining State Senate seats (of 30) they still hold.
10:06 AM, December 20, 2006