Republicans Lose Third Special House Election in a Row

Faces Disaster in November Congressional Elections

A Republican House candidate has lost a special election in Mississippi in what was normally a safe Republican district. With previous losses in Illinois and Louisiana, this defeat makes the third in a row. Disaster for House Republicans looms in November.

This prospect is a bitter irony, considering that the Democrats are about to nominate one of the least qualified, most liberal Presidential candidates in decades, thus setting up a landslide thrashing for the top of the ticket in November. If the Republican candidate can avoid annoying his conservative base too much, while attracting independents and disaffected Democrats, John McCain has an excellent chance of winning by a landslide of Nixon-McGovern or Reagan-Mondale dimensions. Then he would take office confronted with the most leftist Congress since the 1930s.

How did the nation and the Republican Party get to this point? How did they arrive at the brink of the abyss?

The problem was that having gotten power in 1994, thanks to the Gingrich Revolution, Congressional Republicans eventually forgot why the voters gave them that power to start with. Instead of governing conservatively, which would have implied restricting both taxes and spending, Congressional Republicans spent much of their majority enjoying the perks of power by embracing spending, especially earmarks. Earmarking, more commonly known as pork barrel spending, is the name for a corrupt practice of allocating money to special projects in various Congressional districts outside the appropriations process for the political benefit of members of Congress. Congressional Republicans also failed to pass conservative reforms, such as private accounts in Social Security and making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

True, Congressional Republicans have been firm on the War and national security issues. It would be a cold comfort, though, if Democrats are able to expand their majorities in this year's election to the extent that they can cut off funding for the war, thus raising the white flag of surrender.