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"Experience
is the best teacher, but a fool will learn from no
other." -- Benjamin Franklin
In
an opinion-editorial published last week, Dick
Armey, the House majority leader from 1995 to
2003, had this to say: “Somewhere along the road
to a ‘permanent majority,’ the Republican
Revolution of 1994 went off track.”
He
was referring to the fact that the Republicans had
gone from big ideas and vision that got them
elected in 1994 to cheap political point-scoring
on meaningless wedge issues of today. Armey
accused the Republicans of forgetting the
party’s principles and becoming enamored with
power and position.
And
in their zeal to become liked and to buy their
re-elections, Republicans spent taxpayer dollars
like there was no tomorrow. As a result, the
differences between the parties, particularly on
the spending front, led some conservatives to
conclude that there is little difference between
both parties. That conclusion led to the next:
that the only way to make Republicans fiscally
accountable was to deprive them of their majority
status.
Pundits
have come up with many different reasons why the
GOP faces a potential onslaught on Tuesday’s
mid-term elections. Most are focusing on voter
frustration with the situation in Iraq, illegal
immigration or a general dissatisfaction with
President Bush and the country's direction.
As
long as the majority of the voters see no
significant differences between Democrats and
Republicans, the Republican revolution is doomed
to fail. But its failure is not due to a
bankruptcy of ideas.
On
the contrary, responsibility for the
revolution’s failure rests with those we elected
to carry forward the revolutionary principles
articulated so eloquently in the ten-point “Contract
with America.” Instead of sticking to these
principles, the Republican majority decided to buy
our votes by outspending the Democrats. And
outspend them they did, introducing new massive
social spending programs, like the prescription
drug entitlement, which will saddle future
generations with unprecedented demands for new
spending dollars.
Here
in Virginia, we experienced a similar Republican
revolution, with the GOP capturing both Houses of
the General Assembly. For the first time since
Reconstruction, Republicans took control of both
Houses in 1999.
However,
in Virginia the Republican take-over was not the
result of a planned strategy. It was largely due
to changing demographics and the fact that for the
most part, Virginia remains a conservative state.
As the Democratic party veered further and further
to the left, the old blue-dog Democrats found that
they could no longer support Democrat candidates.
This
trend may be reversing itself, particularly in
Northern Virginia, where voters continue to vote
for the Democrat candidates in a large number of
local, state, and national offices. With Northern
Virginia now representing roughly one fifth of the electorate, this
reversal could spell disaster for the GOP’s
control of the General Assembly.
Just
like at the national level, the Republican
take-over in Virginia resulted in state spending
increasing to clearly unsustainable proportions.
The $74 billion biennial budget overwhelmingly
approved by both Houses last year, sent a clear
and unequivocal message that there are no fiscal
conservatives in the General Assembly. (See “Dumb
as Rocks,” June 26, 2006.)
The
pundits are generally predicting a disaster for
the GOP come next Tuesday’s elections. Just
about everyone has conceded control of the House
to the Democrats and the future of the Senate is
too close to call. Obviously, the predictions are
meaningless until all the votes are counted, but
even Republican pollsters indicate that the
Democrats will take control of the House.
Thinking
forward to the outcome of the 2007 elections might
be premature, but some parallels are unmistakable.
The same out-of-control spending in Virginia has
rendered both parties indistinguishable. Worse, in
Virginia the Republican majority in the state
Senate spearheaded the largest tax increase in the
history of the state in 2004 and continues
advocating new tax increases to feed an insatiable
appetite for new spending. At the same time, with
both Houses deadlocked on how to best tackle our
transportation problems, Republicans are seen as
the party of gridlock.
If
the 2006 mid-term elections turn out to be the end
of the Republican revolution in national politics,
could the 2007 elections in Virginia predict the
same outcome for the Republican control of the
General Assembly? More importantly, will
Republican Senate leaders learn any lessons from
the outcome of the 2006 elections?
Regardless
of the election results tomorrow, it is hard to
imagine Republican leaders in the state Senate
budging from their the tax-and-spend ways. They
consist of out-of-touch, long-time incumbents who
have more in common with their Democrat colleagues
than their own party’s grassroots.
As
long as the GOP fails to discipline those who veer
from the principles that brought them to power,
Republicans will continue to suffer major setbacks
at the polls. In Virginia the Party has gone out
of its way to avoid holding accountable the Senate
leadership. With this mindset at play, can we
expect next the loss of Republican control in
Virginia’s General Assembly?
--
November 6, 2006
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