Judging from recent events, the Republican Party is going to show up at a gunfight armed with a pocket knife.
It is not a winning strategy.
While Sen. Hillary Clinton is promising to end the war in Iraq, fulfill the wishes of all Katrina victims and provide free health care for the uninsured, Republicans are still talking about the need for bipartisanship.
Congressional Democrats spent the early part of this week celebrating the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales was finally run out of town by Democrats like New York Sen. Charles Schumer who were more concerned about next year’s election than about the alleged threat Gonzales posed to “the rule of law.”
Schumer’s crass partisanship should be no surprise to anyone, but what is stunning is the willingness of so many Republicans to toss Gonzales overboard in the expectation that his departure will signal the arrival of a period of political calm. Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona actually suggested that the nation can now move on to a period without political bickering and accomplish the people’s business. Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cynically praised Gonzales for his willingness to sacrifice personal interest for the public good. Specter’s lack of support for Gonzales is arguably the reason Gonzales had to give up the fight to stay on the job. (It’s a little like Brutus praising Caesar after orchestrating the assassination.)
Clearly Specter, Kyl and others are living in a dream world. One is tempted to shout, “Wake up! The election is coming!”
There is every indication that the Democrats know the election is coming and that there is more at stake than who will move into the White House. Unless the Republican Party can put together a coherent nationwide campaign, it not only has no chance of regaining control of Congress, it will likely lose seats.
President Bush, to his credit, made comments following Gonzales’ resignation that accurately blamed the Democratic witch hunt for leading to the attorney general’s departure. Too many other Republicans were willing to blather on about how it is time to move on.
The suggestion that the next chapter at the Justice Department is going to be tranquil is just silly. The confirmation of any nominee is going to give the Democrats two opportunities: They can attack the qualification of the nominee, or – if that doesn’t work out well because the nominee is clearly qualified – the hearings will then shift to a new airing of all the things previously blamed on Gonzales. One way or the other, the American public will be given the impression that things are very wrong at the Justice Department and will likely not be addressed during Bush’s tenure.
To be fair, some Republican presidential candidates are trying hard to develop campaign themes that might be appealing in next year’s general election. Still, at this early stage, it seems as if the Democrats have succeeded in defining which issues will dominate the campaign. The list is topped by Iraq, health care and energy policy. The solutions offered by the Democratic candidates tend to be both simple and alluring. Get out of Iraq, go to a single-payer health care system and burn lots of ethanol.
Republicans will have a harder time arguing to keep troops in Iraq, maintain private health insurance and maybe drill an oil well or two – or, heaven forbid, build a nuclear power plant.
There have been other moments in history when the GOP couldn’t decide what principles were worth defending, and it paid a price for the indecision at the polls.
It is not too late to avoid a recurrence of that outcome. But if the GOP is to provide a real choice and not just an echo next year, it can begin by fleeing from the likes of Specter and Kyl as quickly as possible.
Al Knight of Fairplay (alknight@mindspring.com) is a former member of The Post’s editorial-page staff. His column appears on Wednesdays.
