The King is dead. Long live someone or other!
For the first time since the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, the GOP has no appointed heir. From Bush I to Dole, to Bush II, every heir was anointed as a product of inevitability. But now that’s thankfully at an end.
If you support Bush policies (McCain), your chance of election is nil. As welcome, if the Bush family supports you (Romney), GOP voters will remain suspicious and keep their distance. And why not? They’re hoping their party can survive the damage of Dubya.
As it was with Reagan’s ascendancy, all eyes turn to Washington outsiders. Fred Thompson’s mentioned most, but it’s not at all apparent he can create a platform to run on precisely because of Dubya’s damage to every precept of conservatism that’s been neo-ed into a parody of non-parity.
Sam Waterston’s Unity Party effort, if it succeeds, will successfully drain every remaining moderate Republican from the eventual GOP nominee. Which is why I support the concept.
If our choices become a progressive Democratic Party versus a moderate Unity Party and the GOP fades into yesterday, the change will do our country good. But while the cemetery industrial complex rules the corporate boardrooms, I don’t see the demise of the GOP as inevitable.
The only way to achieve that is by clean campaign financing (unlikely as yet) or by the creation of a countervailing funding force that should be called the Peace Industrial Complex.
More than Kucinich’s hoped-for Dept of Peace, that would seem more essential to achieve: uniting the cash of socially conscious businesses and individuals to impact major media broadcasting and election campaigns.
