Gridlock As The Ultimate GOP "Hail Mary"?

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sun Oct 26, 2008 at 20:15

Republicans are losing, and they know it. So what to do?  In the Washington Post, after his customary thicket of lies, David Frum gets down to his serious advice: Cut and run everywhere else to "save" the Senate, and run on partisan gridlock--as a positive policy.  Talk about the politics of the past!  While McCain and Palin have been running a very gross version of an appeal to the politics of the past-all the way back to McCarthy, at least-Frum's appeal goes to the underlying mechanics of political power, trying block the transition to a new party system, which a realigning election portends.

In my "Three Waves And A Wall" series, I described the three waves as follows:

1. The roughly 32-40 year cycle of American Party Systems, described by political theorists such as V.O. Key and Walter Dean Burnham.
   
2. The rise and fall of successive world powers-Spain,
   Holland, Britain, and now us-described by former GOP uber-guru Kevin
   Phillips in Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich.
   
3. The recent wave of "post-materialist" values surveyed on a worldwide basis over the past several decades by the World Values Survey, and described most fully in the work of social scientist Ronald Inglehart.

The first of these three waves is the most regular, and divides US history as follows:

Partisan Balance In US History Through Six Party Systems Control of Presidency, House & Senate
Dem-Reps: 12 / Feds: 2 / Split: 1	Dem-Reps: 9 / Whigs: 1 / Split: 7
Dems: 1 / Reps: 9 / Split: 8	Dems 3 / Reps: 12 / Split: 3
Dems: 13 / Reps: 1 / Split: 4	Dems: 3 / Reps 2.25 / Split: 13.75

The last of these six party systems is unique, in that the dominant form of government is not rule by one dominant party, but rather, divided government (a whoping 13.75 sessions of Congress, more than twice the total of Democratic and Republican controlled sessions combined).  This situation has helped produced a significant shift of power away from the broad public sphere, and into the backrooms of Versailles-elite Washington and its politically-connected satellites in wealthy enclaves across America, and even throughout the world.

Maintaining this gridlocked system of private government is Frum's big plan. But don'take my word for it.  Here's Frum:

What should Republicans be doing differently? Two things:

1. Every available dollar that can be shifted to a senatorial campaign must be shifted to a senatorial campaign. Right now, we are investing heavily in Pennsylvania in hopes of corralling those fabled "Hillary Democrats" for McCain. But McCain's hopes in Pennsylvania are delusive...

But it is not far-fetched to hope that we can hold 45 or 46 of our current 49 Senate seats. In 1993, then-Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) stopped Hillary-care with only 43 seats. But if we are reduced to just 40 or 41 senators, as could easily happen, Republicans and conservatives would find themselves powerless to stop anything -- and more conservative Democrats would lose bargaining power with the Obama White House.

It's nice of Frum to use such a prominent platform to remind us all that stopping Americans from getting adequate healthcare is one of the enduring first principles of the Republican Party.  No one should be allowed to forget that-ever.  Thanks, David.  I appreciate that.

But it's not just adequate healthcare Republicans want to block-it's everything:

2. We need a message change that frankly acknowledges that the Democrats are probably going to win the White House -- and that warns of the dangers of one-party, left-wing government. There's a lot of poll evidence that voters prefer divided government. By some estimates, perhaps as many as 8 percent of voters consciously cast strategic votes in favor of division. These are the voters we need to be talking to now.

Of course, divided government has been the defining characteristic of American politics since 1968.  It's what sets this "Sixth Party System" apart from all others.  This is the most basic and profound appeal imaginable to the politics of the past.  And Frum is making it with a vengeance....

He continues:

I'm not suggesting that the RNC throw up its hands. But down-ballot Republicans need to give up on the happy talk about how McCain has Obama just where he wants him, take off their game faces and say something like this:

"We're almost certainly looking at a Democratic White House. I can work with a Democratic president to help this state. But we need balance in Washington.

"The government now owns a big stake in the nation's banking system. Trillions of dollars are now under direct government control. It's not wise to put that money under one-party control. It's just too tempting. You need a second set of eyes on that cash. You need oversight and accountability. Otherwise, you're going to wake up two years from now and find out that a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House have been funneling a ton of that money to their friends and allies. It'll be a big scandal -- but it will be too late. The money will be gone. Divided government is the best precaution you can have."

Yes, because the Republicans are so scrupulously honest, don'tcha know!  And they've been soooo good with the economy, too!  And balancing the budget!  And catching bin Laden!

Wait, what's this?  A rare outburst of honesty:

It's the only argument we have left....

But, no, it can't last:

And, as the old Washington saying goes, it has the additional merit of being true.

It's the conservative version of the plagal cadence (only they are the "plague" its refering to).  The musical plagal cadence goes IV/I.  The conservative plagal cadence goes: Truth/Lie.