The Lesson of Alito: Elections Have Consequences

Alito, like Roberts before him, was confirmed easily and with very little real opposition from Democrats. Which is exactly as anyone watching could have predicted upon the moment of his nomination.

Why? Because ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. Not being able to get good people on the courts, or even prevent bad people from getting there, is one of the biggies.

Choice took a big hit today.
The environment took a hit.
Civil liberties took a hit.
Separation of powers took a hit.

Hopefully, Democrats took the hit that will WAKE US UP.

ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. If you don’t like getting beaten up, then I humbly suggest that you find a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate near you and write him or her as big a check as you can. Sign up to volunteer for him or her. Recruit your friends to do the same.

No viable Democratic Senate candidate to jump behind? Then find a Democratic candidate for something else. State house. City Council. School Board. Dog Catcher. We’re behind. We’ve been falling behind for 20 years. While Republicans have been diligently building their base, training their grassroots, and filling their bench, we’ve been…I don’t know what, exactly. But clearly not building our base, investing in our grassroots, or filling our bench.

We’re in this war for the long haul, and if we want to win the battle this November, November 2008, November 2010, and beyond, we’ve got to get down to the hard work of learning from those who have vanquished us – and it’s impossible to look at today’s U.S. Senate and argue plausibly that we have not been vanquished – changing our battle plan, and getting truly prepared to win the war.

ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. All elections. The consequences may manifest next year, or they may manifest in twenty years. Take a look at how many Senators held down-ticket offices first. They rarely come from nowhere. The City Council candidate you help elect today could be the U.S. Senator who votes to restore our rights in many tomorrows.

ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. There’s a time and a place for issue politics. That time is not now, and the place is not where there are truly contested elections. Until the numbers change, we have no control of anything, and I would hope we all agree that more Republican control is not going to be a good thing.

ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. Let's have a late new year's resolution: we'll put all of our political energy toward making sure that they're the consequences we want.

What conservatives?

I don't know how many times E.J. Dionne has been praised on this blog--but whatever the number is, it's not enough. This morning he writes about the budget about to be voted on in the House of Representatives--one which "balances the budget on the backs of the poor", as our fair president spoke against back when he was still trying to get people to vote for him.

As Dionne says, this budget is terrible for many reasons--because it takes from the poor (Medicaid recipients) to give to the rich (health insurance companies), because it was worked out in some backroom deal behind the backs of the conference committee (now a regular practice in the Republican-controlled Congress), but--most bafflingly in this era of supposed conservative control of government--because it continues to perpetuate our growing budget deficit.

Just last weekend I heard the president complaining about Democrats who want to "tax and spend". Besides the fact that that label grew old about fifteen years ago, it provides the perfect opening for Democrats. In order to win elections, you've got to have some crossover into the other person's territory, and the perfect issue for Democrats to steal from Republicans is fiscal responsibility. The one genuine good conservatives are supposed to bring to government is the ability to manage a budget responsibly, and yet under Republican control our annual budget has never been balanced and our national debt has steadily increased--this after a Democrat worked so hard to bring our fiscal situation under control. Repeat after me, Democrats: what's even worse than a "tax and spend liberal" is a "spend and spend" (suggestions welcome on a catchier alternative title than this one!) right-winger hijacking the label of 'conservative'. Republicans are no longer the party of fiscal responsibility. Sing it from the rooftops, and we'll have control of Congress back in January 2007.

Oh, yes--and be sure to contact your Congressional representative TODAY to register your opinion on this budget bill. If you're not sure who it is, look it up at www.congress.org.