Post-Mortems

I’m almost done with the post-mortems. In fact, I am done with them. I’ve read more than enough about the whys and wherefores of this loss over the course of the last 36 hours or so and I just don’t want to read any more. We lost, that’s it. Buck up. Move on. (ed: Did you just say Move On? Why, yes…yes, I did!)

I didn’t link to anyone yesterday, and I had my reasons—chief among them being I wanted to read as much as I could before deciding who best represented my opinion. (Hey, it’s my blog, right?) After due thought and consideration, here are the two post-mortems that resonate most clearly with me. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

First, Dean Barnett writing at Hugh Hewitt’s blog:

Most importantly, we didn’t lose because our countrymen suddenly misplaced the virtues that make America great. It is a distinctly liberal trait to blame “the people” when they don’t vote as one would dictate. I’ll brook none of that from our side. The fact is, we thought our country would be better off with a Republican congress. We made a case to the American people. They didn’t buy it because they thought it was a weak case.

And you know what? They were right. In the closing weeks of the campaign season, I felt like I was a lawyer who had a bad client while writing this blog. That client was the Republican Party which had broken its Contract with America from 1994 and had become unmoored from its conservative principles. As its advocate, I couldn’t make a more compelling case for Republicans staying in power than the fact that the Democrats would be worse. I believed in that case, but when that’s all the party gave its advocates to work with, you can honestly conclude that Republicans got this drubbing the old fashioned way – we earned it.

Second, Fred Barnes, in his usual venue:

THIS ONE IS PRETTY EASY TO EXPLAIN. Republicans lost the House and probably the Senate because of Iraq, corruption, and a record of taking up big issues and then doing nothing on them. Of these, the war was by far the biggest factor. Unpopular wars trump good economies and everything else. President Truman learned this in 1952, as did President Johnson in 1968. Now, it was President Bush's turn, and since his name wasn't on the ballot, his party took the hit.

[…]

Already the wails of the immigration restrictionists are rising, insisting Republicans lost because they weren't tough on keeping illegal border-crossers out. Not true. The test was in Arizona, where two of the noisiest border hawks, Representatives J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, lost House seats. Graf lost in a seat along the Mexican border, where illegal immigrants flock.

What Americans want is a full-blown solution to the immigration crisis. And that will come only when Republicans come together on a "comprehensive" measure that not only secures the border but also provides a way for illegals in the United States to work their way to citizenship and establishes a temporary worker program. If Republicans don't grab this issue, Democrats will.

Immigration was a big failure of Republicans over the past two years, but hardly the only one. Republicans cast themselves as the party of reform, but they didn't reform anything. And heaven knows, the public is eager for a lot to be reformed, starting with Congress itself and moving on to taxes and entitlements.

The choir is encouraged to read both essays. You may or may not agree with me, but I think these two guys hit the nail on the head. Back to basics, GOP…back to basics.