Partyline Palaver from a "Happy Chick"

I like Mary Katherine Ham as a writer and a person, but that didn’t stop me from rolling my eyes when I saw this video in which she ascribed the Republican “thumping” in the last election to fiscal policy.

It’s the war, stupid! (No, Mary, I don’t think you’re stupid in the slightest bit. Just parodying the old line here).

The reason the Republicans lost the election was Iraq – pure and simple. The war has not been going well and the Democrats and their media allies were able to exploit that to the hilt. Bush – whatever his pluses and minuses – has rarely been a terrific defender of his war policy, so that simply exacerbated the situation.

As for fiscal policy, whatever their complaints with a free-spending Bush administration, I can’t believe in the end very many Republicans switched over to the Democratic side (of all people) because of it.

Until the War on Terror is over (and that doesn’t seem like soon) it will dominate our thoughts and our votes far more than anything. The rest will be a sideshow. And it should be.