North Star Writers Group - Syndicated Commentary: Opinion, Humor and Features

November 5, 2008

Think the Race is Over? Think Again

So what was Barry O’s big moment . . . the point of no return when the presidential race of 2008 was sealed?

When the netboyz (and girlz) called New Hampshire and Pennsylvania? When the Buckeye State bucked Commander Mac? When New Mexico took a new direction?

Try E. “None of the above.”

Don’t be fooled by the stunning, seeming 300-plus electoral vote win for the soon-to-be 44^th president of the United States. This one is going into overtime. Like four years’ worth.

Explain yourself, you may be thinking. I thought you’d never ask.

The Republicans remember well what happened after George W. Bush seemingly won re-election by a nearly identical popular vote margin in 2004. That jaunty Swift Boat Commander and windsurfer John Kerry may have conceded – but the rest of his party never did.

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and company simply acted like W’s impressive victory never happened – and ignored the mandate 43 had earned.

Reform Social Security? Still about pushing Grandma down the stairs.

Carry on in Iraq? We’re losing (at least we hope we are) . . . and need to spend the money at home. Time to get out.

Win the war on terror? Why, we’re the bad guys who are torturing innocents at Gitmo, while shielding the evil telcos who are helping spy on us.

Extend the tax cuts that had turned the 9/11 downturn into a V-shaped recovery . . . and make them permanent? A sickening sop to W’s rich frat boy friends at the expense of working people.

Combine all that with Katrina (spun into a morality play further demonstrating Republican disdain for poor black folks).

Pour in Plamegate (neat covert cover that, appearing in Vanity Fair in shades and a convertible, but not as neat as neutralizing Karl Rove as a political force).

And blend in a Bridge to Nowhere, assorted other billions in earmarks, a brief energy crisis and a page-trolling GOP congressman, and voila! The perfect recipe for the political alchemy of turning 2004’s coup into a midterm crash.

But wait, there’s more! Behind a charismatic and chameleonic young candidate, the Democrats made sure they chose their opponent for the 2008 election as well.

You thought it was John McCain? Silly you.

This one was nothing more – and nothing less – than the Dems’ third rematch with one George Walker Bush.

The “game-changer” – 2008’s fave electoral phrase – in this campaign should have been Mac’s Lloyd Bentsen-evoking hard smash in the final debate when he declared convincingly that he was not George Bush, and if O wanted to run against him, he should have run four years earlier.

Except that in the hands of Obama’s supremely skilled team, that volley was whistled back in the form of an instant ad that managed to lash McCain more tightly than ever to the mast of W’s already sunken ship – and ensured that Sleek Barry’s race really was against the most unpopular president in recent history.

In tonight’s convincing conquest, the book is finally closed on hanging chads, “illegitimate” victories and 5-4 Supreme Court decisions.

Now, it’s the GOP’s chance to return the favor.

Already, I can assure you, energetic and dynamic House Republicans like Mike Pence, John Shadegg, Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan – along with Senate counterparts such as Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint – are planning their own Gingrichian countercoup not only against the Unholy Trinity of Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (oh my!), but also against the tired old warhorses in their own leadership.

Accept a rerun of the sorry spectacle of the big-bank bailout in the next “stimulus” package? Why, when you can substitute a package of corporate and capital gains tax breaks that would bring a real spark . . . rather than more warmed-over socialism?

A tax cut for 95 percent of Americans? Yo! If 95 percent is good, isn’t 100 percent even better?

Health care? How about real change that puts control over their own care into the hands of everyday Americans, instead of their employers and insurance companies – and more ominously, a teeming army of Barackian bureaucrats?

Earlier this election season – right up until the Sarahcuda appeared at John McCain’s side – there was serious talk in Republican circles of doing a rope-a-dope in this campaign and gearing up for a comeback in 2010 and beyond.

If that was the secret desire of many of the GOP’s conservative faithful, guess what? They got their wish, even if it sometimes seemed to involve more dope than rope.

And given the thinness of President-elect Spread-the-Wealth’s mandate – as opposed to his margin of victory – they are positioned to make 2008 the electoral equivalent of that old Saturday Night Live skit: The Campaign That Wouldn’t Leave.

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