After spending way too many hours of my life yesterday listening to the hysterical Negative Nellies of Conservative Talk Radio spew out their obsessive mandate madness, I’ve decided to toss my hard-earned two cents worth of wisdom into this debate.
Rush Limbaugh is excoriating the Republicans and the conservative media in general for not running with what he perceives as the glorious political mandate given to Republicans after their massive nationwide victories on Tuesday. And that mandate, according to the Rules of Rush, is simply Stop Obama: Stop Amnesty, Stop Obamacare, Stop the Progressive/Socialist agenda. Period!
Well, Mr. Limbaugh is correct, yet incorrect. Yes, the GOP has been given the Stop Obama mandate, BUT—yes, there is a BUT. The GOP has also been handed a second, contradictory mandate. And that one goes like this: Get on With Governing: Stop the Confrontations, Stop the Gridlock, Stop the Drama.
To deny that the electorate is sick and tired of the DC drama, to deny that Tuesday’s election had anything to do with good governance is sheer fanatical obtuseness. For gosh sakes, how obvious can it be that the Republicans have been placed in the driver’s seat by the American people to lay the groundwork for good governance—to move the economy forward, to ease tax burdens, to submit a balanced budget, to secure our borders, and to serve as a counterweight to the unconstitutional antics of Barack Obama. And yes, good governance also includes putting a stop to amnesty and Obamacare.
The worst approach Republicans could take in January is to come roaring out of the senatorial gate with an aggressive in-his-face confrontational agenda. Charles Krauthammer is correct—the GOP needs to be smart and disciplined. They need to put forth their vision for America and they do that by consistently pushing legislative bills that have broad American appeal, then sit back and let the Progressive shill in the White House veto himself into utter irrelevance. Any and all confrontation must be initiated by Mister Left-wing. Obama must be the sucker caught in the glaring spotlight of obstruction and ideological fanaticism, NOT the Republicans.
To begin their tenure in 2015 by initiating a full-stop Beltway battle is, in my humble opinion, suicidal for the Republicans. And the Screaming Meemees of Talk Radio who are clamoring for an all out frontal attack against Obama and his policies are too egotistically stupid to grasp the strategic failure of such an approach. You don’t defeat the Obama hydra with a trumpet-blaring, drum-beating charge of the Light Brigade and expect to hold the high ground of public opinion. Instead, you kill the monster with a thousand cuts inflicted by the legislative pen of the oh so reasonable and oh so sensible Republican Senate.
Yep, the bloody battles and confrontations will surely come. But that Big Lame Duck on Pennsylvania Avenue will find himself quacking away at a general public that has become so utterly disgusted by him, his party, his policies, and his panderers. And by A. D. 2016, the Democrats will discover that their progressive party has traveled from the magical land of majestic pseudo-Greek columns to the burnt and charred wasteland of political Armageddon in just eight short years.
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