Have you ever had a friend or loved one who seemed determined to destroy themselves? I think almost all of us have known someone like this at one time or another, so most of you will know what I'm talking about.
Maybe they were the kind that drinks too much...and drinks to soothe the guilt of drinking too much, ending up in trouble with the law or losing their job or their family...and drinking some more to soothe the hurt over this. You know, the vicious cycle?
Or maybe they use drugs in the same self-destructive spiral.
Or gamble and lose money, so they gamble more to recover the money they lost and lose still more money.
You can talk to them, you can try to reason with them, you can try to help them...and they keep running back to what's killing them.
Apparently the Republican Party has become one of these entities bent on its own destruction.
Why do I say that? If it weren't already obvious, I read this today from the Washington Times:
In the wake of their third special election loss in three months last night, House Republican leaders are rushing to embrace their presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, as their hope for staving off disaster in November.
"Candidates who hope to succeed must show that they're willing and able to join McCain in a leading movement for reform," House Minority Leader John Boehner, Ohio Republican, said in the wake of Democrat Travis Childer's victory in Mississippi's first congressional district — a seat that had been firmly Republican.
The First-Amendment-bashing, global-warming-believing, compromising-with-liberals, not-supporting-Bush-tax-cut, soft-on-illegal-immigration John McCain is NOT the benchmark for reforming the Republican Party--or congress!
It just makes me shake my head, and I almost want to laugh, if so much weren't at stake. Even when they get a lesson, they walk away with the exact wrong message.
Democrat Childers ran as a conservative--more conservative than most Republicans these days--and wins, and the Republican party surmises: we must embrace liberalism to win.
Huh????????????????????????????
More from the Times:
Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Democrats have succeeded in running conservatives immune to being tied to the national Democratic Party. He said the solution for Republicans is to work with Mr. McCain to define a new agenda.
The McCain campaign also pointed out that Mr. Childers sought to distance himself from Sen. Barack Obama, who is leading the race for Democrats' presidential nomination. Mr. Childers even ran an ad protesting being linked "to politicians I don't even know" and proclaiming himself "pro-life and pro-gun."
Pro-life and pro-gun...the kind of things the leadership of the national Republican Party has paid lip service to, and proven it isn't really committed to.
Republicans may indeed be correct when they figure they have a "brand problem," but if your product "brand" is suffering because you have too much vinegar it, you don't improve perception of your brand by adding another bottle of vinegar to the mix!
Likewise, if your brand is unpopular because it's tasteless and watered-down, you won't improve confidence in the product by adding another bucket of water. Duh!
I don't know where Cole has been, but McCain is pretty mushy when it comes to being pro-life, and he's mushy on guns. For that matter, McCain is mushy on being conservative. He's even mushy on being a Republican, given his alliances with Democrats on things like education, campaign finance "reform," illegal immigration, and judicial nominations.
The Republican Party didn't get control of congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years by banking Left; they got it by boldly proclaiming a conservative agenda (Contract With America) and an end to the liberal lunacy.
Too bad they didn't stick with it after the first 100 days; they'd still be in charge on the Hill.
Does the Republican Party really think that now the key to success is to continue alienating its own base? Does the Republican Party really believe the answer to its problems is to accelerate its morphing into the Democrat-Lite Party?
It looks like RedState is right: Republican leadership is proving that it's going to have to spend some "Old Testament" time wandering in the wilderness until this liberal generation of Republicans dies off, before they're fit to enter the "promised land" of congressional leadership.
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