Obama's Chance and the Impending Rebellion in the GOP

As Obama takes over, his charisma and resonating populism hearken back to 1981 when Ronald Reagan brought true change to Washington and his party. Hopefully Obama will be the best Democrat since JFK in the White House. His Democratic predecessors (LBJ, Carter, and Clinton) left a lot to be desired--horrible legacies that will be easy for Obama to eclipse. I do think that he will make some tough decisions that will anger some even in his own liberal Democrat Party, perhaps even the very people like Feinstein and Pelosi that were cheering for him yesterday. When Clinton became President, the country was still in good enough shape that we conservatives could take joy in making fun of Slick Willie while we watched him screw the country up royally. With this election, things are different. We are in such a precarious position now that if Obama doesn't get it right, there won't be that much of a country left for the GOP to take back in four years. I choose to be an optimist and think he'll get it right. The feeble economy and unrest in the Middle East also now control his agenda, rather than Obama setting his own. It will be hard for Obama to veer into left field and meddle with current social policies when he's supposed to be working on the economy and the wars in the Middle East.

The Republican Party can now take stock of the damage that has been inflicted over the past decade or so. Social conservatives have been gradually losing power in the party since Reagan left in 1988. Throughout his tenure Bush revealed that "compassionate conservatism" was nothing more than Nixon style repackaging and strategizing of moderate to liberal Republican thinking. The current GOP watched as the liberal media trashed Sarah Palin for, let's face it, two reasons: she believes in God, and she owns a gun. These are the two core wedge issues of the social conservatives, yet they are not supported by today's GOP leadership. Nowhere do you see the division and growing animosity between constituency groups in the GOP more clearly than here in Tennessee, where the Democrats joined with a Republican to appoint renegade Kent Williams as the Speaker of the House. Williams announced today that abortion restrictions and expansion of gun rights was at the top of his agenda. I wonder if we would have heard the same thing from Jason Mumpower if the "real" GOP nominee had been chosen. During the next four years, the GOP needs to face the fact that once again, moderate Republicans have ruined the country and the Party. Only returning to hard core, blue collar social conservatism can restore the GOP.