November 2, 2006
“Stay the Course"
for Failure?
By Jack D. McNamara
The
2006-midterm elections are of unusual interest to Americans.
In 1994 there was an earth-shaking electoral shift when Republicans won
a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives, an event which had
been replicated only twice before (1946 and 1952) since the landslide
election of 1932.
Those previous elections became benchmarks in American politics. The
Democrats quickly nullified the two earlier elections but the 1994
“Contract with America” Republicans have held the current majority for
a period equal to their domination of the Congress from 1920—1932.
That period of “Back to Normalcy,” Roaring Twenties flappers, and
Prohibition was swept away by the Great Depression and World War II.
If Democrats gain 15 seats in the House and six in the U.S. Senate they
will control both houses.
They won’t get those seats here. The Democratic Party hardly exists
today in the great state of Texas. Our mailboxes and television screen
are full of Republican candidates advertising but you have to go to the
newspapers and magazines to find any mention of Democrats. They have
some good candidates — for example, Barbara Radnofsky, who is running
for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Kay Bailey Hutchison.
The U.S. Supreme Court helped Democrats by returning our 23d
Congressional District to what it was before Republicans gerrymandered
it in 2003. Democrats would seem to have an advantage in the new
district where most counties have traditionally voted Democratic. But
their votes will be split among six candidates against the well-funded
Bonilla.
There is little reason to expect much difference from the 2004 election
which Bonilla won in all three Big Bend counties against an unfunded
Joe Sullivan — Brewster 2200—1363; Jeff Davis 817—242; Presidio
837—806. If the six Democrats and one Libertarian — Ciro Rodriquez and
Lukin Gilliland appear to be the leading candidates — do not aggregate
50% of the votes, Bonilla wins. If they do corner the 50%, there will
be a runoff. We hope so.
The Texas governor’s race demonstrates in an odd fashion the particular
failures and missed opportunities of the election. One week out,
incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry has less than 40% approval
among the five-candidate field.
Perry has not been a bad governor. His opponents collectively show that
Texans favor someone else. However it does not appear than Texans
sufficiently prefer any particular opponent so Governor Perry it is
likely to be, as it was in 2002. No runoff in the governor’s race.
Perry defeated Democrat Tony Sanchez in Brewster (1254—1121) and Jeff
Davis (570—379) in 2002. Presidio voted Sanchez (997—322).
Look at that Presidio County vote again. Most of the 23d District
counties are more like Presidio than Brewster or Jeff Davis counties.
Presidio voted so overwhelmingly for the very flawed Tony Sanchez of
Laredo, surely Texas Democrats could unify for someone other than
Bonilla.
But we are always speculating what the effect of the population changes
shifting over us will be. One issue this year
should bring that out — immigration.
We have been and continue to be battered with the “broken border”
theme. It is the second most important issue for Texans (behind only
Iraq) in a timely Houston Chronicle/KHOU-TV poll last weekend.
But there is little engagement among the candidates on the issue.
During the gubernatorial debate it came up, each candidate gave his
position and there has been little comment since except on one matter.
Governor Perry‘s ads claim a “60%” reduction in crime on the border. El
Paso Times Brandi Grisson exposed the claim as bogus, an overblown
exaggeration of rural statistics over comprehensive incidents.
Misrepresentation of law enforcement statistics is a widespread flaw of
our current politics so we will return to this issue. Why don’t
Governor Perry’s competitors pick up on it? We don’t know, other than
the plague of incompetence generally abroad.
And that is the real issue in this election. Despite the Foley and
Cunningham scandals the Republicans are not noticeably more evil than
their Democratic counterparts. But the central issue of the election is
the failure of the U.S. to resolve the Iraq War.
Republican mistakes shriek at us from the headlines every day. This is
not the effect of a biased press, although the press is certainly
biased.
Could anyone with his wits about him NOT be biased?
“Stay
the course,” a presidential slogan lifted from former President Ronald
Reagan, was with us for several years and then suddenly became
inoperative last week.
“Stay the course” became inoperative at the same moment that U.S.
Senator John Warner (the courtly Virginian who is chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee) discovered the U.S. Government has not
been tracking the serial numbers of weapons issued to the Iraqis.
Thousands of weapons are missing. Guess who has them?
No wonder Democrats are giddy about their chances. But celebration may
be premature.
Thomas B. Edsall is a veteran Washington Post reporter and author of a
new book Building Red America: The
New Conservative Coalition and the Drive for Permanent Power.
Edsall says Democratic hopes are an illusion. In a lengthy extract in
the September 25 issue of The New
Republic magazine titled “Party Hardy,” Edsall writes — “And so,
while the Iraq war may someday be viewed as a political overreach of
sorts it seems unlikely that it will lead to a fundamental realignment
of the electoral landscape.”
We will soon know the results. •
(Also published by the
Big Bend
Sentinel of Marfa, Texas November 2, 2006.)
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