Where Do The Republicans Go Now?

A question that has been on my mind since Bush kept Cheney on the ticket back in 2004 accelerated on election night and hit light speed with the failure of the automotive "bailout". Reading David Broder this morning and I see he has been thinking the same thing:

All the signs are that the stimulus spending will be opposed by congressional Republicans, whose shrunken ranks are increasingly dominated by right-wing Southerners who care not what their stance does to harm the party's national image.

Everything Bush did - for a while - indicated a firm belief that a 51% majority meant that it did not matter exactly who would follow him for they would be a Republican and do like he did. Even though The Nation raises the possibility that Obama shall be tempted by the powers created by Bush, I think knows history too well for this seduction.

Since learning that there would be no permanent majority for Republicans, Bush acted as if reality did not matter.

The phrase coming to my mind is cutting their nose off to spite their face.

Broder touches on Indiana.

Even though Bush later used his authority to provide the loan, the defeat of this legislation at Republican hands will not be forgotten when GOP senators run for reelection in 2010 in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. It will also echo in industrial states such as Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, California, New York and New Jersey, when Republicans try to challenge for Senate and House seats.

Where now for Indiana Republicans? Are our Republicans to side with the ghosts of the Confederacy? Oliver P. Morton might just be hanging his head. Yet, our House Districts are so gerrymandered that I cannot see any danger to Dan Burton but what of Pence and Souder and Buyer?

But asking that question leads to an even more important question: what of Indiana's Democrats? Time for all those blue collar, Reagan Democrats to face up to the facts of what they helped create by crossing party lines but also time for the party to recognize the necessity of proving better candidates.

Consider the ironies of this election and the current position of the parties. The Democrats nominated an African-American paper when in 1860 they were the party identified with the slave power and after 1900 with the party of segregation. Meanwhile, the party recognized as opposing the slave party in 1860 now represents most of the Confederacy, two of the border states, and two Union states (Kansas and West Virginia). The Republicans ought to be asking themselves why a man who raised himself by his bootstraps, who is bi-racial, did not gravitate to the supposed party of self-reliance. to the party of Lincoln, but to the Democrats?