November 9, 2006
Here’s the message on the election: republicans lost, democrats did not win. Democrats had no new ideas, but republicans expended energy on keeping office, not on giving voters a reason to perpetuate themselves in office.
If conservatism is dead, why did so many conservative democrats run and win? Republicans forgot what they stood for in 1994 and so a majority of voters forgot them. They had too many scandals, spent too much of our money and didn’t shrink the size and reach of the federal government. They disgusted those who would have voted for them and that disgust propelled democrats into the majority.
Republicans should have seen this coming. It was a message on talk radio and it was a message contained in many columns, like mine, and in letters from voters to members of congress and the president.
Progress in the war might have helped, but progress on the main republican agenda would have helped even if there had been no progress on the war. When will republicans learn? They’d better learn fast. Hillary is on the horizon in 2008.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.
