PrintNovember 4, 2009
The Genie's People Speak at the Polls
The peoples' Genie spoke yesterday. But will they keep speaking, or will the Genie ease back into the bottle?
After watching the cram-down of astronomically expensive legislation and the accompanying explosion in national debt, the people's Genie tipped over the bottle and came out. Then the Genie's people spoke with bold passion at the August town hall meetings.
As the fall approached, they kept speaking. They gathered at T.E.A. Party events along nationwide bus tours. They formed a huge crowd in Washington, D.C. on 9/12. They carried homemade signs in civil demonstrations in cities of all sizes across the land. Although photos of those signs seldom made it into the legacy media, we saw the tide of images spread across the internet.
To the media, it was just all so much sound and fury, signifying little...until yesterday. Yesterday the Genie's people spoke with their votes, and their language was conservative. Now we await the spin from those who have consistently discounted the Genie's impact.
James Carville fired an early salvo on CNN as Republican Candidate Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the 23rd Congressional District race in New York. "I have an announcement to make. Ronald Reagan's big tent just collapsed in Upstate New York. It no longer exists."
Note to Carville: Big tents are for the circus and clearance sales.
Carville cast the Democrats' iron template to explain what happened. The right-wing radical conservatives have taken over the Republican Party, and look how they lost! Carville traffics in loud hyperbole and isn't to be taken seriously, least of all by those who lean Republican. To say he doesn't have the best interests of conservatives at heart is a gross understatement.
Concerning the three major election results, the Democrat Party spin will be: (1) Hoffman attracted a surge of right-wing extremism and its money, but lost to saner heads; (2) New Jersey suffers under such economic strains that any incumbent would have lost; and (3) Creigh Deeds was a weak candidate. There is, therefore, no particular lesson coming out of yesterday's elections that the Democrats will acknowledge having learned. There will be no slowdown in pushing their progressive agenda. From their perspective, it changes nothing. In fact, it gives them one more vote in the House of Representatives.
The legacy media will follow suit. It's what they do these days: parrot the progressive agenda. But who cares? The setting sun is low on the horizon of their effectiveness in indoctrinating the masses. Sure, they still sway some, but fewer every day. Despite what the alleged comedian Bill Maher says, Americans are definitely not stupid. We no longer routinely drink, as we once did, from the fountains of wisdom flowing from the talking heads on the old evening news shows.
So the liberal interpretations of yesterday's election results are predictable and not to be taken seriously by conservatives, be they Republican conservatives, Democrat conservatives, or Independent conservatives. After all, the Genie's people are not a political party, and "conservative" is not a party label. Both major political parties are having difficulty fully coming to grips with that notion. It assaults their operational paradigms.
It may even be that the DNC (Democrat National Committee) understands the Genie better than the RNC, and fears it less. And therein lies the challenge to the GOP. If the GOP wants to succeed between now and the midterm elections, it will need to decide collectively what it stands for -- like the flag once did. We know what the DNC stands for.
Two crucial questions come out of the election results.
First, what will the RNC (Republican National Committee) and mainstream Republican elected officials make of it? Have they heard the Genie's people speak, or will they discount the New Jersey and Virginia results as anomalies? We have cause to wonder.
RNC Michael Steele was late to the party in New York's 23rd District and threw support to Hoffman only under pressure. In fairness to Steele, his is an administrative rather than a leadership position. Senior Republican Newt Gingrich never made it to the party, as he held fast in his support of Scozzafava. Consequently, despite Newt's language, his conservative credentials have incurred a significant door ding. Sarah Palin scooped them both by coming out for Hoffman hard and early. Her strong suit is that she knows the Genie's people and speaks their language.
A second, and equally important question, is this: Will the activism of conservatives, regardless of their party or non-party affiliation, continue to build? Or, have we seen it peak?
If between now and the 2010 election the Democrat-controlled Congress crams down a few more bills that "fundamentally transform" American, might many of the Genie's people begin to focus inward, concentrate on their immediate families, and hunker down for what's ahead? Someone once wrote, "On the blackened battlefields of history lay the charred bones of those who, on the verge of victory, lay down to rest, and resting died." Will the Genie's people now lie down to rest?
On balance, today is a day of victory for conservatives who feel the nation is in peril. Tomorrow is a day to reengage the ideological fight against progressives, whatever their party alignment. It's fundamentally not about the two major political parties. It is about progressive liberalism versus constitutional conservatives. Much of the rest is window-dressing.
The Genie is out of the bottle. This could be only the beginning of what the Genie's people can bring about.
