The Pause That Refreshes

09/18/2005

Paul Munnis

Let’s take score for just a moment.

At the state level, Tim Pawlenty has just finished a disaster of a budgeting session with his policies proven to be bad, his association with the Tax Payers League has been rendered, and his election prospects are in deep doubt. His Party is stuck with him and he is a handicap. Pawlenty will be desperately trying to convince people to vote for him but Swing voters can be easily reminded of his past and his new initiatives can be shown as artifices to manipulate the voters in 2006. His stock is down and he can’t even hype himself until the Legislature comes back into session. They are not in any rush to do so.

At the Federal level hurricane Katrina has blown away the political aspirations and the political agenda of the GOP. Faced with a major disaster they must now govern as though they are Democrats. They will be forced to create, fund, and manage a recovery effort that will be watched very carefully. They will have to raise taxes. They must govern from the center. They have little room for error and they must incorporate Democrats into governing lest they own every single failure in spades. They are forced to become bi-partisanship or else face extinction. Bush must become like FDR and people like DeLay are living on borrowed time. The GOP conservative agenda is now set-aside except in economics where spending restraints and Congressional pork fat elimination will be a necessity and will be led by the fiscal conservatives.

Yesterday I was the only one saying that but today Clinton has said essentially the same thing on the “Meet The Press” program with Tim Russert. More knowledgeable people in the GOP now “get it.” An era of bi-partisan and shared governance must return to Washington.

Karl Rove has been a spectacular failure as a strategist. Every strategy of his from Iraq to New Orleans has fizzled. The GOP is lying dead and injured on the political floor as the explosions of his poor policies have blown up in the GOP’s face. He is now demoted to administer the recovery in New Orleans and if that goes bad then he will be sent off to write a book or something. Rove is history.

The Tax Payers League has lost their agenda as polls indicate that Americans recognize that taxes must rise to permit the needed social programs. People still come first.

For Democrats this is all a form of justice and an acknowledgement of what goes around comes around; an affirmation that we have common needs that our government must satisfy and meet.

Now we are in a position where we can represent our people again and we had better not blow it. Arrogance, or any form of poor governance will not be tolerated by the public and the 2006 election will erase poor performance from the scene no matter who the leader is.

Democrats can now shine or else let our candle go out. It’s up to us which it will be. We can now stop calling each names and start finding ways to compromise on honestly held positions.