But...We're Not Dead Yet

All reports of the demise of the Republican party are as of yet, sadly, untrue. But there is hope, because they are on life support and their recent behavior is evocative of a stage 4 lung cancer patient walking into the QT for a pack of Marlboros.

A Democrat has to love Dick Cheney. His actions and outcomes are as predictable as an Univision telenovela. What Cheney says has ceased to matter as much as his smug, sarcastic delivery. Every time the man opens his mouth, he finds ways to turn off those within the eighty thousand or so people left willing to self-identify as Republicans.

Not only is Cheney unwilling to admit that his party lost six months ago, he keeps reminding the electorate as to why. Choosing a public confrontation with Barack Obama and Colin Powell is not the most appropriate form of swaying the independent voter back to the Republican Party. What is amusing is that despite both Obama and Powell being black, there has been little attention paid to the possibility of a prejudicial component.

Of course, no one harbors any illusions about Mr. Cheney having the first type of commitment to diversity-his crowd being diverse enough to include both Wonder Bread and Hellmanns Mayonnaise. The Republicans have lost all opportunity to connect with socially conservative african-american voters through Nixon's Southern Strategy. Latinos have been turned off by economic isolation strategies directed toward latinos while conflating all immigration with illicit behavior.

Thanks to Cheney coming off as a condescending (bag of fertilizer), a point has been reached where there are Republicans who feel that they no longer are white enough for their party...(see: Specter, Arlen. Before too long, also see: Steele, Michael.) An alliance with Rush Limbaugh and other quasi-sophist pundits has filled the party's ears with the idea that they're all right, but gosh dang it, they're just not conservative enough.

And Al Gore lost because he wasn't Liberal enough. That premise cost the Democrats several years of kowtowing to the anti-semitic, authoritarian Ralph Nader/Cindy Sheehan left. Leaving the center and surrendering a party to the most anti-libertarian forces of its base is a recipe for disaster. Had Gore moved further to the left in 2000, he would have lost twice the votes he got from Nader to Bush, and the whole Florida thing never would have happened.

If a party does not have a leader, they cannot manufacture one. The Republicans should ask John Kerry about that. At the moment, the choices for still-active political figures are limited to Sarah Palin and "Other," because every time Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) inserts himself into the discussion, one hears the late, great Harvey Korman saying "...too Jewish," in Blazing Saddles.

And the base is choosing to embrace Governor Palin in droves. Should Palin be the best that the Republicans can get, there is hope that the Yankees will be calling your pudgy, out-of-shape, 42-year-old Wandering Gentile to pitch...hopefully against the Red Sox. Mrs. Palin is not the cure for what ails Republicans...she is exactly what ails them; poor communication skills, a stale agenda, and an authoritarian political tack well to the right of the mainstream.

Should Republicans wish to rejoin the political forum, they have a few steps to take.

One: Conservative is not necessarily arrogant and caustic. The whole caustic and arrogant thing took off with Morton Downey, Jr.'s TV show in the late eighties, which was evocative of the radio show which predated Limbaugh in Sacramento. Reagan could be acerbic and inappropriate, but was rarely anything less than a perfect gentleman.

Democrats should not fear Sarah Palin, but they need their A game for Mike Huckabee.

Two: The whole State's Rights/Tenth Amendment resurgence that Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) has put back on the table? It doesn't work. Primarily, it appears to be a vehicle for old confederacy types to retry institutionalized bigotry against latinos. Smaller jurisdictions enacting ordinances to review nationality documents with regard to rental properties and business licenses, 287g, and like laws are a pretext to harass latinos of all legal dispositions.

What happens when a progressive state whose economy is in the toilet uses the tenth amendment to vacate the parts of federal immigration laws that they don't like. (I'm talking to you, Michigan and Rhode Island) If driver's licenses and business licenses bring in new entrepreneurs without papers and the economy takes off, the current tenth amendment fans will howl for a constitutional convention to repeal the thirteenth through the seventeenth amendments.

As if they liked those amendments in the first place.

Three: Whether they like it or not, Republicans are going to have to move left to survive. At the moment, there is a very weak railing holding their political vehicle away from a looong drop into the drink. Republican potential lies in the increase of old, angry, affluent white Christians, which is a demographic which shrank under their watch, and the trends aren't looking too good for the future.

You see, their children grew up knowing Dora as well as their parents knew Miss Piggy. Those are children comfortable with diversity. They saw the government break the country's image, social compacts, and economy within five years of a surplus of goodwill, tranquility, and money. Those children reaching voting age this year know Democrats as the party of peace, prosperity, and minimal governmental intrusion.

Remember, the people that Republicans promised us that they would be?