The Republican De-evolution

Love him or hate him you had to respect Ronald Reagan. He had big ideas. He knew how to express them. He got people excited. He launched a Republican Revolution which swept politicians like Newt Gingrich into office. But now, the heirs of Reagan are a different breed altogether. The revolutionary zeal seems to be wearing thin due to the abrasive quality of the Neo Conservative power grabs and disrespect for the conservative values that fueled the revolution.

Conservative talk radio had a lot to do with fueling the Reagan revolution, and it may be heralding the end as show host after host reaches for their favorite weapon: Blame the Democrats. Apparently Democrats are responsible for Al Qaeda, 9/11, and now the Foley scandal. But the accusations are sounding thin and the public is not responding like they used to.

As Time Magazine reports:
”On conservative commentator Laura Ingraham's show, the longest-serving Republican House Speaker in history explained why he would not resign despite a sex scandal that has produced a hail of questions about his leadership and the failure to stop one of his members from cyberstalking teenage congressional pages. "If I fold up my tent and leave," Dennis Hastert told her, "then where does that leave us? If the Democrats sweep, then we'd have no ability to fight back and get our message out."

The Republicans are hardly even pretending to have big ideas or better ethics any more; they are just desperately trying to hold on to power for power’s sake. And you can hear their fingernails screeching on the marble roofs of the Washington D.C..

I don’t want to talk about Foley and the pages. I think it is sick. And there are so many other examples of Republican corruption (election fraud, lies, WMD, Jack Abramoff, torture, habeas corpus, wire tapping, lies, lies, and more lies) that should resonate with voters. There are so many reasons for true conservatives and true people of faith to turn away in disgust from these Neo Conservatives. But those issues just seemed to roll off the conservative voters like water off a duck. They didn’t seem to penetrate. The Foley scandal seems to resonate with people. People finally seem to care about this lapse or lack of ethics.

Perhaps this signals the end of the Revolution. Perhaps conservative voters will finally see these hypocrites for the power hungry liars that they are. Or maybe the Neo Cons will once again tilt the voting machines. Maybe they will make voters afraid enough one more time. Maybe the talk radio host can screech shrilly enough to get the old dogs to roll over for their masters one more time.

But how many more times can they pull this off? Maybe the old dogs will learn a new trick. Maybe Democrats will take the house. Maybe they will clean house. Maybe…