GOP fear mongering costs them another special election

(CNN) -- A third-straight special election defeat in as many months left congressional Republicans reeling Wednesday, seriously concerned about what the November elections have in store for their party.

Travis Childers(D) defeated Greg Davis(R) in a seat that has gone Republican for the last 15 years and one where Bush defeated Kerry by a solid 25 points. The times are a-changing. However, what is interesting is that the Republican party used Davis' campaign leading up to the election to test drive its fall stratergy - that of linking the opposition to Obama and through him to the boogeyman that is Rev Wright. Instead of proposing policy, or attacking Childers' solutions which opposed those put in place by 15 years of GOP rule, or heck, even attacking Obama's policies, they chose to run an attack ad questioning Childer's endorsement of Obama.

In a move reminiscent of Stalinist or McCarthyite tactics, the ad made the point that because Childers endorsed Obama without denouncing his Reverand, he was some how tainted and a depraved radical as well. Lest you think that my earlier reference to Stalin or McCarthy were just typical of my admitted weakness for rhetorical bombast, I will try to explain the similarities. During the Stalinist putsches someone could be arrested simply for failing to denounce an ex-comrade or even a casual acquaintance who had now fallen out of favor with the party line. The most flimsy connection would be used against one when shake up time came. McCarthy too created such a frenzy of fear and distrust, that denunciations, baseless or otherwise, were used by people to exact political revenge or to extract themselves from public scrutiny by pointing out someone else to take the heat.

In this case, the election had little to do with Childers' endorsement of a national candidate and absolutely nothing to do with the Reverand. The GOP simply wanted to see how much play the issue would get them, in what they assumed was a relatively safe electoral playground where they had nothing to lose, save for a few percentage points. They believed they were playing a statistical game and their arrogant decision has come back to bite them.

If anything, the last few weeks have shown us, it is that the American public does not kowtow to any party or media line and it does not appreciate being taken for granted or lied to. Strains of The Who's "Won't be fooled again" soundtracked this entire movement of the campaign process. First they rejected Hillary's penny gas drive and now they have stood up to a party that took their vote for granted and tried to run a badly disguised play to distract them.

Their three losses notwithstanding, the GOP plans to continue using this tactic come fall. What more will it take to convince the people running the Republican campaign to come to their senses? A twenty five point reverse in a conservative stronghold is apparently not enough. This tells me something. They have nothing else left to offer. Continuing the war in Iraq and prolonging the suspensions of freedom under the Patriot Act is starting to turn off even the hardcore Republicans who voted for Bush twice. The economic slowdown and gas crisis hasve shown that the policies in place for the last eight years have not had the promised effect of sustaining growth. The links between the two failed policies - endless war and tax cuts - along with the effects of extravagant government spending, have become apparent to voters.

All that is left is an appeal to the religious right and to the much vaunted 'values voters'.
However the problem with those folks is that they were going to vote Republican anyway if they voted at all. They are not swing voters anymore and the kind that may have needed swaying are not going to be swayed by McCain. That alliance is at this point a festering corpse that McCain is poking with the sceptre/spectre of a Democratic Victory.

Here is another piece of interesting news regarding this particular loss in Missisipi that I was lucky to hear about on CNN(TV). They sent Dick Cheney to Mississippi to campaign for Greg Davis. That has to be the stupidest thing the GOP can do at this point. Their effort should be to distance the new candidate from the old guard, so that he can sell the same old snake oil in new packaging without letting voters know what he is doing - whether it be this guy Davis or McCain in the fall. Sending out Ol' Forked Tongue at this point only points to a paucity of ideas in the Republican camp. What are they gonna do next? Unfreeze Donald Rumsfeld and send him out to trot up support from senile voters nostalgic for the times when being told the US was winning in Iraq was the same as actually winning outright?