A Long Slow Road for Conservatives

Last month I gave kind of a hard time to some weird conservative guy who was trying -- and failing -- to lay out a plan for the future of the Republican Party.  At some point he must have realized he couldn't back up any of his ideas with actual facts.  And yet he published his post, anyway.

In just a couple of weeks or so, we'll be halfway through 2009.  I think that timeframe -- around the 4th of July or so -- will be when we see an up-tick in the already heavy MSM coverage of Election 2010.  You can be assured that a great deal of ink will be dedicated to who the Republicans are now, and what they stand for.  Nobody has a good answer for either of those questions.

I'm starting to think about what races will be interesting in 2010, and I'll agree with Charlie Cook: several United States Senate races is where the action will be (including the Florida race).  Even though Republicans seem to have no voice going into the early season of Election 2010, Charlie predicts that the Democrats will likely lose a few seats in the U.S. House, but may actually gain a few Senate seats.  

Even if Republicans were to follow the prescription of a coherent Republican like Mike Murphy, I'm not so sure they could have things turned around by 2010.  Evolving policies at a national level is like turning around an aircraft carrier -- it takes a little while.  

And it's not going to be easy or without a lot of pain.  There are going to be a lot of folks on the far right who won't make the natural evolution easy.  They won't let the issue of gay rights go.  They won't talk about responsibility -- real responsibility -- for things like gun ownership, for things like torture, for things like disparate drug laws in America.  They won't recognize tragic mistakes made on the world stage.  They won't do the responsible thing on the issue of choice and women's rights.  They won't work to find common ground on economic issues like responsible but necessary taxation.  They won't concede any ground on issues like immigration.  They'll continue to push their radical agenda, based falsely in their interpretation of religion.    

In fact, they won't do those things -- and other necessary but maybe painful things -- because they have a vested interest in pushing their own agenda.  It's what sells newspapers, or radio air time, or promotes their agenda to a small sliver of society... and enriches them.  Only time will tell if people with conservative principles will figure this out -- and that time is running out.