The Republicans are trying to find their rallying fear du jour for the 2010 mid-term elections and they think they ve hit on a dandy one: the economy and how all of its current problems are President Obama and the congressional Democrats fault. I guess ‘fear of a socialist state’ isn t working like they thought it would.
Last election, the fear was that gas would get to be more expensive than single malt scotch, causing us to lose our American way of life. In 2006, it was that gays would be getting married and moving in next door, raising families like ‘Leave it to Beaver’ with Ward and Jim Cleaver. The elections in 2004 saw the GOP raising the specter of terrorists appearing out of nowhere and everywhere, taking ‘bad’ books out of the library and carrying enriched uranium in briefcases while shopping at the local supermarket. And they wonder why a candidate with a message of hope appealed to a lot of voters.
2010 is going to be about the fear of how this country will go into an economic landslide worse than the Great Depression if the Republicans don t get another shot in office.
‘We re going to take the gloves off on the economy,’ said Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, chairman of the House Republican Conference. ‘I m going to be a one-trick pony on the economy for a while.’ Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who chairs the Senate Republican Conference, said another key component of the GOP strategy is to convince (italics are mine) voters that the nation s economic malaise belongs to Obama, not his predecessor or anyone else. ‘There s going to come a time when the president has to be held accountable,’ Alexander said. ‘He can t keep looking back at President Bush or President Hoover or President Roosevelt or President Truman and say it s all their fault. He s the one who came to us and said let s borrow a trillion dollars and fix the economy.’
I wouldn t wag that finger of accountability too hard, Senator. Okay’¦ yes, Obama came to Congress and the American people and asked for money to fix the economy. Money for programs that hard-headed Republican governors refuse to spend to help their state, while blaming Washington for the condition of their state s economies. Money that is supposed to undo 18 months of recession and counting in less than 6. Money that is supposed to undo an economic crisis caused by banks not lending because they got bit by high risk bad loans they handed out in order to make paper profit. Because the economy has not done a 180, somehow the stimulus program, in less than 6 months, is already judged a failure and the whole recession is Obama and the Democrats fault.
Boy, are the memories of the GOP short or what? Whose focus on putting ‘the dream of home ownership within the grasp of every American’, in order to buy the middle class vote, helped to put this all in motion? If I remember correctly, it was President Dubya that said that, not Obama. And whose refusal to hold the markets accountable, in order to appease all their Wall Street friends, allowed all the selling and swapping of bad loans to take place, turning the loan market into on big game of ‘hot potato’? Was that Obama too?
I hope the GOP does bring up the question of the economy. I hope it raises fear about it in the way they are practiced at. Because if they do, they will guarantee that the Democrats will stay in control of the Congress at least until 2012, when the real benefits of the stimulus plan have a chance to show themselves and the economy is back on even footing through no help from the self-styled GOP opposition party. Fear is dangerous when misdirected; the GOP is just about to find that out.
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