The reaction of Newt and some others in the Republican Party is rather like the Roman Catholic reaction to Luther’s initial protests against indulgences – they just didn’t get it. Luther wanted to reform the Church, not create a new one, but was essentially pushed (e.g. in his famous debate with Eck, a skillful debater) to take his views to their extremes, ultimately creating the break with the Church.
The Republicans could well end up like the Whigs in the 1850s – essentially melting away in the face of a new party – if the “leadership” which cannot lead does not wake up to the simple FACT that the grassroots have had it. Again. The grassroots picked Goldwater over Rockefeller in 1964 (I was there in San Francisco), got our buts kicked, and the liberals came back with Tricky Dick and Ford. Which gave us price controls, Watergate and Carter. The grassroots took the party back with Reagan, but the liberals took back the party with GHW Bush. He presided over winning the cold war on the basis of Reagan’s work, but, blew it on taxes and lost. And, now the liberals came back again with McCain and lost, giving us socialism and thug politics.
The third time is it. Three strikes and you’re out. No fourth down Hail Mary or Statute of Liberty play is going to save the liberal Republican establishment. Either the party figures it out, or they’re history.
The problem, is that unlike 1856, we don’t have time to lose a presidential election — if Obama wins in 2012, our republic will not survive without a cataclysm at least as bloody and disruptive as the Civil War.
Responsible conservatives are pleading with the Republican leadership, but they’re deaf. Newt beclowns himself, again. Whatever hopes he has of running for office again, he should abandon: he couldn’t even win in the South.
