It's Wabbit Season

Shhh. Be very, very quiet. The Republicans are thinking. Michael Steele, leader of the RNC announced in a speech yesterday that "the Republican Party is again going to emerge as the party of new ideas". Oh, I can’t wait. What’s on the agenda? The economy? Global warming? The continuing war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Social Security? Health care crisis? Certainly seem to be a lot of things to choose from. Sadly, the closest thing to an agenda in Michael’s speech seemed to be the following:

Speaking about President Obama he said, "He's young. He's cool. He's hip," But "this is not 'American Idol.' This is serious. We are going to take on the president head-on. The honeymoon is over."

"It is up to us to expose the great Democrat fraud that is now being thrust upon this nation,"

Poor Republicans. There are a few hurdles in their path. Hurdle one is the pavlovian response to any initiative put forth by the Democrats as “socialist”. Republicans are contrarian by nature. They are like the lone horse and buggy on the street cursing us all as we race by in our automobiles. Being a stick in the mud is the only thing they have left. And don’t think that Barack hasn’t had to drag quite a few Democrats into the cars. They are politicians too, after all.

Hurdle Two is that damned Barack Obama. He has proven to be a formidable foe. He has principles and he’s not afraid to use them. His weapons of choice are honesty, fair dealing and compromise. How can they battle him when he so often starts from a position of finding the middle ground?

Hurdle three is that Barack has the people on his side. Granted, he had the advantage of Bush’s failed presidency on his side. Anything looks good in comparison. But to be fair, Obama didn’t create our bad economy and failed policy so he could get elected. We are fed up with being lied to and pacified. The problems are serious and we don’t want to hear anymore partisan nonsense. Get to work. Isn’t that why we sent you to Washington?

I take back my “hurdles in their path” analogy and instead offer up that they are like a horse that can’t even get out of the gate. Until they quit believing the objective is to get back in power they will go nowhere.