It's conventional wisdom among many that the GOP took a drubbing in 2006 and 2008 because it had failed to be "sufficiently Republican," a sentiment summed up by Mike Pences's much quoted observation that "we did not just lose our majority, we lost our wasy. In recent years, our majority voted to expand the federal government's role in education by nearly 100 percent, created the largest new entitlement in 40 years, and pursued spending policies that created record deficits, national debt and rampant earmark spending.”
But that misreads the history of the Bush years, argues Ramesh Ponnuru of the National Review:
It seems much more likely that Republicans lost in 2006 because of the bleeding in Iraq, corruption in Washington, wage stagnation and the lack of any agenda by the party to do anything about these or other problems. Some of these issues had faded in importance by 2008, but in that year voters were also ready for a change after eight years of Republican control of the White House and, above all, dismayed by the economic crisis. In 2008, 60 percent of voters said the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, wasn't “in touch with people like them” -- and 79 percent of people who felt that way voted against him. That's what defeated Republicans, not a perception that they were doctrinally impure.
I agree with some of his arguments, disagree with others. All in all, though, a provocative article well worth reading and discussing.
