THE FEAR - political version

One of the reasons I expect real Republicans and conservatives to be hopping mad about the Bushie fiasco is that it stopped what looked like a generation long turn to the Republican Party dead in it tracks. It is very likely going to cost the party the next election, which may lead to a decades long wandering in the wilderness. This was the situation in the 60s and a major reason why William F Buckley founded National Review. It wasn't until Reagan that the Republican Party became ascendant again. Newt Gingrich's Contract on America started a more intense recovery for the party, one that seemed to have some intellectual and moral underpinnings, no matter what you thought of it.

No more. Here is a very somber review of the state of Republican prospects in the near future. Here's a taste of it:

Polling data released this month confirm what GOP officials are picking up anecdotally: Swing voters are swinging away from Republicans at high velocity. Most alarming to GOP strategists is a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center that found 50 percent of those interviewed consider themselves a Democrat or leaning that way; only 35 percent tilt Republican.

One of the long term issues is how to attract voters in the future. To date the Republicans seem to have destroyed the initial inroads into the Democratic lock on African Americans. Worse, their support among Evangelicals seems to be weakening on one hand and alienating other voters on the other. Their tough stance on immigration has probably destroyed any hope of appealing to Hispanics, who are a growing block. Ken Mehlman sure thinks so:

"We have to win back the confidence we lost in '06 from swing voters and ticket splitters," said Mehlman. "The way you do that, in part, is by being a party that is less reliant on white guys and expands its support among Hispanics, among African-Americans."

Most commentators point out that much of this is due to the war, and that if the prospects in Iraq start looking up this will all turn around.

Personally, I don't think so. The issues now are corruption and competency and I don't see how that can be turned around. In fact, it will probably just get worse. A lot worse.

Listen very carefully to news stories about the politicization of the Dept of Justice and the Federal Civil Service along the lines of what we know was the politicization of the Iraqi effort. That story is just now beginning to receive notice and the Demos are at least smart enough to make the most of it.

As I said in an earlier post: even if a Republican candidate wins the White House it will be on an agenda to clean out the effects of the Bush years.