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National NewsConservative News
America May Vote 'None of the Above'
By Gary Palmer
Posted on: May 28, 2006
The talk around Washington, D.C., is that Republicans are headed for a massive defeat in this fall's elections. Various pollsters are not only predicting that the Democrats will regain control of the House of Representatives, but some are even projecting that the Republicans will lose 25 to 40 House seats.
Some prominent and highly regarded pollsters and political experts are saying that the 2006 election will be 1994 in reverse. The Democrats may indeed demolish the Republicans this fall, but it may be more like 1998, than 1994.
In 1994, the Republicans swept the Democrats out of office after the Democrats passed the largest tax increase in U.S. history and after Hillary Clinton's failed attempt to nationalize our health care system. While they were significant, those two issues alone were not enough to account for the gains the Republicans made. What turned people out to vote for the Republicans was that the Republicans had a plan called the "Contract With America" that appealed to social and economic conservatives alike. The Contract resonated with pro-family groups, limited government advocates, and free market enthusiasts. It brought groups with different agendas together under one banner and that banner was represented by ideas that made sense to the American public.
That is why this election may not be 1994 in reverse. Even though the Republicans have done just about everything they can to lose their majority, the Democrats have practically nothing to offer as an alternative in terms of ideas and vision. Consequently, this election is shaping up more like the 1998 election than 1994. Prior to the '98 election, Republican leaders were predicting a gain of seats in the House. Instead, they lost seats.
In 1998, the Democrats did not have any major new ideas to run on, they just repackaged their usual message and ran as new Democrats. On the other hand, after the Republicans had failed to deliver on much of their "Contract With America," they were out of ideas and basically had no platform other than Bill Clinton had sex with Monica Lewinski. Their campaign message appeared to be, "Bill Clinton is immoral, Bill Clinton is a Democrat, my opponent is a Democrat, vote for me because I am a Republican."
The electorate was not impressed.
Much to their shock and dismay, the Republicans discovered that the election was not a referendum on Bill Clinton's ethics and morals after all. It was about what elections are almost always about, issues and ideas that matter to voters, especially at the local level.
This year's election will basically come down to the issues of immigration, spending, federal judges, and Iraq. At this point the Republicans are on the wrong side of immigration and spending, drifting off course on the judiciary, and have seemingly lost their voice on the war against terrorism in Iraq.
Apparently, some Republican strategists believe that the issue of federal judges will keep their conservative base together and motivated, especially the evangelical base. But what these strategists seem to have overlooked is the fact that the evangelical base is a bit more sophisticated than they think and has a considerably broader agenda than the federal judiciary. Evangelicals are angry about immigration and spending and they want an administration and Congress that is together in the war on terror. In addition, discouraged evangelical leaders will not work to turn out the vote if the Republicans continue to dismiss the evangelical's number one legislative priority, an amendment to the U.S Constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.
Some high-profile Republican leaders have dismissed concerns about what evangelical voters might do in the next election by smugly assuming that they will continue to vote for Republicans because they have nowhere else to go. But what they fail to realize is that "nowhere" is exactly where many evangelicals will go. They will stay home by the millions just like they did in the 1996, 1998 and 2000 elections.
This would normally be good news for the Democrats, but they have nothing better to offer. And, in my opinion, it is not likely that most Americans will be motivated to vote for a party whose primary agenda for the next two years will be the impeachment of President Bush, raising taxes, allowing same sex marriage to take root in law, and giving up on our efforts in Iraq.
The Democrats can't afford to take conservative to moderate positions on these issues in an effort to attract independent and swing voters. If they did, they would create a massive rebellion among their base which is now the almost exclusive domain of the hard core left.
Thus, similar to the Republicans in 1998, the Democrat's political fortunes this fall more or less hang on voters voting for them simply because they are not Republicans. And the Republican's political fortunes hang on the hopes that voters will vote for them because they are the lesser of two evils and have no one else to support.
For many voters, that is no choice at all. Maybe it is time that every ballot gave voters an opportunity to vote for "None of the Above." In this fall's elections, "None of the Above" might well be the most popular choice.
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