Real Peoples Politics

“Yes we can!”

A chant made familiar during the 2008 campaign season, it can hold just as much meaning now to Republicans, as it did for grassroots Democrats in the months leading up to November 4. Trounced in the Presidential race and once more the minority party of the Senate and House, can the Republicans win both back?

Yes they can!

Can conservatives fashion creative and thoughtful solutions to today’s most pressing issues?

Yes we can!

If history is an bellwether of where things will be in the near future, there are bright prospects ahead for the Republicans. Demoralized on November 4, it didn’t take long before the big, existential questions popped up: what does this mean for the party? Is the nation no longer center-right? Alarmists and gleeful leftists proclaimed the end of the Republican Party as we know it - and perhaps they are right. Let November 2008 mark the end of the Republican Party as we know it — and instead usher in the Republican Party as we’d like to know it. While our conservative representatives are in the minority and have little to lose, why not take the opportunity to recognize their ideals, and strive for the best? Can Republicans take back the legislature with brilliant and effective new strategies?

Yes they can!

Can we hope that the Republican Party will come back to the people and carry the banner for lower taxes and greater prosperity?

Yes we can!

If history is any indicator, if the minority party plays its cards right, 2010 and 2012 will be a cakewalk. Only four years ago, the Democratic Party underwent a thoroughly complete trouncing, and yet only two years later, the same are-we-lost-in-the-wilderness party, became the majority party. Can the Republicans gain power once more by fashioning ideas different from those offered by Democrats, but even more attractive to all classes?

Yes they can!

Yes we can; we can do anything when our minds are put to it. The Republican Party, if it gives up pork barrel greed, shakes itself up and realigns, and once more follows the heart of conservatism-those principles so beloved over history, which tend to be lost when things are going so well- then we may just be in for a wonderful period ahead. And having some handsome new faces in the Republican Party leadership doesn’t hurt, either.

Can the Republicans once again attract all types of voters through heartfelt and reasonable conservative policies, while still maintaining a center-ideology and answering first to the people?

You bet! Er, I mean, yes they can!

Thank you, Barack Obama supporters - if it weren’t for you, the Republicans may never have found such a rousing and inspirational message to look to!

It is one thing to want conciliation; it is an entirely other to claim it, after eating a big slice of humble pie.

Senator Harry Reid announced on Tuesday, that it was time to move forward and keep working, after his failed attempt to humiliate Senator Joe Lieberman for exercising his freedom of speech. Reid bravely told his own story, involving a valiant effort to lock away and hide his anger — which he wasn’t that successful at doing. The entire reason the Lieberman witch-hunt was set into motion was Reid’s seething remarks that come election day, Senator Lieberman was going to face a reckoning. It was because of the backroom support of fellow Democrats, not Senator Reid, that Senator Lieberman won the overwhelming confidence of Democrats. The final vote tally was 42-13, in Lieberman’s favor, leaving him with his coveted chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee. I have a good guess as to who one of the losing 13 was.

Perhaps Reid realized that an unfavorable verdict on Tuesday could have pushed Senator Lieberman into the Republican caucus, effectively leaving the Democrats with a maximum of 59, not 60 votes, or one vote shy of the coveted filibuster-proof free Senate. If Reid was ever truly interested in a real spirit of post-election bipartisanship, he never would have set this failed vote up, or at least would have canceled the vote in the days leading up to it. Because he failed to do either, Reid showed that he is not serious about any such benevolent spirit.

Senator Reid can pompously declare a win for as long as he likes; revisionists often have a knack for changing reality to fit their view of what should have been, versus what actually was. What happened on Tuesday was a stunning win for the good Senator from Connecticut, compounded by the fact that even anonymously, his fellow Senators overwhelmingly voted confidence in his abilities as a leader.

Leading House and Senate Democrats are championing the right of unions to take away the secret ballot from their employees. Ironically, the same leadership is encouraging House and Senate members to use a secret ballot on Tuesday to vote on whether or not to strip Senator Joe Lieberman of his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Not hypocritical at all.

To do this to any Senate member is to subject them to unnecessary humiliation; to do this to a more senior member of the Senate, who has been a member for nearly 20 years, is just odd. More importantly, this sets a troubling precedent. Does this mean that from now on, whenever a member breaks from party orthodoxy, they will be subject to public humiliation? Does this mean that whenever a member has the urge to follow their conscience, rather than their party, they will be punished? And what if the Dems do not win the 60th Senate seat they so covet? It would be delicious if they do come up short, and Lieberman accepts the Republican offer to come caucus for the other side (by his own admission, nowadays Lieberman has a great deal in common with Senate Republicans, and probably could do a lot of good for them, essentially as both an Independent and recovering liberal.) At the end of the day, as Senator Lieberman showed the public, it is the voters who elect a representative, not the Senate; as such, individual senators have a responsibility vote in the best interests of both their specific constituents and the nation at large … sometimes the latter will need to trump the former. If Senator Lieberman is stripped of his committee chairmanship, it will be a triumph for sectionalism and a sad day for honest representation.

The office of Senator Harry Reid was contacted multiple times for comment, and no word was returned. The senator and his staff were given ample time and opportunity to defend Reid’s actions, and chose not to. Senator Harry Reid is already a bad sport who is talking to few reporters, in what can only be understood as a lame attempt to justify what he must know is simply petty and immature behavior. The behavior is so outrageous, that even the highly partisan and Dodd is reportedly against the punitive action against Senator Lieberman. If even Dodd is against it, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Perhaps Dodd is worried that he is at risk, too, as his fat-cat ways have already been admonished as part of the reason the economy is now in trouble. Perhaps Dodd is worried that if Lieberman is today’s scapegoat, he will be tomorrow’s.

And in a time when the Democrats are shuffling around to “find” votes in exceptionally tight Senate races, it would seem that the leadership could ill afford to basically embarrass and turn away one of their own who has been a member of their voting block for 19 years. For what reason is Senator Chris Dodd, a fellow Connecticut senator, suddenly and quietly supporting Lieberman? This is the very same Dodd who not long ago, threw his support behind Ned Lamont, as Lamont was handed the Connecticut nomination to run as the Democratic Senate candidate. Lieberman handily traunced Lamont, to the benefit of Connecticut voters. Also to their benefit, the CN voters are more loyal than any other Democratic friends Lieberman once had in the Senate. Let’s see if we can’t connect the dots in this illogical mess, in the next installment. In the meantime, best of luck to Senator Lieberman in the secret vote tomorrow. Let’s hope that conscience trumps pettiness and that enough of the senators will realize that if they vote to humiliate the one decent senator who has followed his conscience, even though sometimes it has been at his own expense, (Lieberman agreed to count absentee military ballots in the 2000 election, even though it probably came at his expense, and in 2004 he voted to back a nation in war, rather than be the empty standard-bearer), they could be next. What kind of message does this send both to the Senate and to the public? If you follow your conscience, you will undoubtedly suffer? I highly doubt that the Framers had such a message in mind when they established this country.