|
before moderate Republicans throw in the towel.
There is schism in the issues looming right ahead in the next few months that the Bush people are being herded toward by Republican voter opinion. No matter what they end up doing with these issues, their moderates are going to walk away once the dealings are complete. The Bush people are going to have to try to thread the needle between moderates and hardliners, but (to mix metaphors) the overlap or common ground between the two factions is shrinking rapidly. With hardliners as deeply shaky and scared as they are, sensing The People slipping out of their control, the Bush people have to default their way or risk a revolt. Moderates will get utterly screwed in some of the dealings and split off abruptly on those issues. On the others they'll get compromises that tell them they really have nothing left in common with the hardliners, and once the deal is made they'll split on that issue on some slight provocation (an 'ethics problem' of whatever scale, it can be miniscule, is the usual one).
I'm not kidding with this list. This is the last stuff they'll deal with starting off as one Party in each policy area:
- readjustment of the Alternative Minimum Tax to cover only truly high incomes
- demoting Tom DeLay and Karl Rove and their crews
- rehashing everything Roe v Wade, but leaving it at the Casey status quo
- letting go of control of Iraq once the "freedom" bit looks utterly absurd
- handing over the settling of Iraq matters to the UN once the British/Coalition bails out
- 1-2 more major successful Al Qaeda attacks on Americans or Coalition countries
That's what they have left. The state of the economy and a predictable need to re-bribe grassroots Republican voters is going to drive an effort at repealing the AMT. Likely federal indictments are going to force activity on Rove and DeLay. The Roberts nomination is becoming all about internal Republican views on Roe v Wade and sucking up to the Christian Right, the man himself is sort of incidental. European elections and developments this fall are washing out the last pillars the Coalition stands on. And bin Laden now controls the last bit of American support of Bush outside the Republican Party and a bunch of the support inside it, which he can literally blow apart any time he chooses.
Rove is in Zugzwang now and struggling mightily to get out of it, with no true hope of it. He can really only play for time, and that's rather transparently what he's doing.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
