COLUMN: Victorious Republicans cannot plan for a second chance
Bloodbath — that’s probably the best way to describe what happened Tuesday to the Democrats.
Republicans received this nice little get-out-of-jail-free card as a result of the Obama administration and a Democratic congress butchering things over the past two years.
While time will determine if the elected Republicans will actually live up to at least restraining the size of government, I believe the primaries did a pretty decent job of filtering the wheat from the chaff. I would say this applies not only to the national or state races, but the local races as well.
Of course, I might be biased. My dad beat the incumbent Republican county commissioner in his district; going on to beat the Democrat candidate with almost a 2 to 1 vote ratio. But I digress.
As I mentioned in a previous column, Republican candidates should actually be, well, conservative, even if it means they lose in the general. This is crucial to not blowing what we won on Tuesday.
I’ll use Mike Castle as an example. While Castle may have been able to beat Chris Coons in the Delaware senate race, he would have been more of a liability than an asset. Government expansions through things such as the passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program are exactly the reasons that lead to Republicans cleaning house. Yes, there are those such as John McCain who voted for TARP but still got elected. I think they realize the writing that is on the wall — they will have a second chance.
Assuming the Republicans are able to mitigate government expansion, I hope that the next step would be to actually reduce its size. I am not talking just a few tax cuts here and there or slight loosening of regulations. I’m talking about significant changes, such as entitlement program reduction or elimination.
It will be hard to show that programs such as social security need to be eliminated. With the showing on Tuesday, however, I think people may be more receptive to hearing the arguments. After all, people got upset over the federal government jamming itself into health care — I can only imagine what they would think once they realize that their social security “contributions” lose value and that they have no option to opt out.
The Republicans have this one chance and hopefully they don’t blow it. Assuming they can do that, the next step is to reverse the ridiculous government expansion that has gone on over the course of both Democrat and Republican administrations for the last couple of decades.
