send to a friend | print | comment

Are they doing something wrong?

Last Friday’s edition of The Delaware County Daily Times reported that, at June’s meeting of Democratic Party leaders at the Marple Library where the big attraction was newly-Democratic Senator Arlen Specter, two Republican commissioners from Aston Township also announced their defection to the Democratic Party. With Third Ward Commissioner Joseph Possenti and Second Ward Commissioner Jeffrey M. Pilla leaving, the article also quotes county GOP leader Tom Judge wondering “[i]f we’re doing something wrong.”

I’m not sure whether Judge deserves criticism for not realizing that his county party is affected by the larger goings-on of the national party, or for not realizing what state the national party itself is in, but are they doing something wrong? Well, let’s review.

On the state level, Republicans not only badly lost the race to register new voters during last year’s presidential campaign but also lost a great many of their own voters who opted to become Independents or Democrats.

And while Republicans, obviously, still control the state Senate, Democrats, for the moment, hold both the Governor’s mansion and the state House and have a fairly good winning percentage in state races over these past several years.

On the national stage, Republicans suffered significant setbacks in House, Senate, and gubernatorial races in both 2006 and 2008, and lost the White House to a candidate who ignited political participation and excited the populace in a way that had never been seen.

And on the heels of such electoral losses, facing an exceedingly popular president and with a party identification hovering somewhere around 25 percent at a time when our country is facing major challenges on many fronts, how has the GOP chosen to deal with this?

By screaming “no” at the top of their lungs to any ideas put forward by President Obama or Congressional Democrats, presenting patently laughable ideas of their own (anyone remember the “budget” proposal with no numbers?) and putting their party infighting on blatant public display.

And of course, let’s not forget the public meltdowns of some of their party’s rising stars. The brothel visiting of “family values” Senator David Vitter (R-LA) and gay sex scandals of Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) and Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) are but a distant memory thanks to the recent admissions of adultery by former moralizing “Promise Keepers” Senator John Ensign (R-NV) and Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC), the latter adding to his difficulties with a six-day disappearance that was first reported to be a hike up the Appalachian Trail (with no way to reach him in the event of an emergency and no temporary hand-off of power to the Lt. Governor just to be on the safe side), then revealed to be a covert excursion to see his mistress in, of all places, Buenos Aires, followed by a Romeo-esque soliloquy on true and tragic love delivered to, gads, The Associated Press.

Not to be outdone, superstar Alaska Governor Sarah Palin chose the opening day of a long, national holiday weekend to deliver her own rambling, frenetic address as to why she was not only not planning to seek re-election at the end of her term, but that she wasn’t even going to finish the last 2 1/2 years of it!

Are they doing something wrong?

Oh yeah, you betcha.

July 8, 2009 at 2:10 pm

--Tammy Alonso

Tags: Delaware County, Republican Party, Sarah Paliln

comments

comments [0] | post a comment