For those interested, I have a rare Sunday column in today’s NY Post. An excerpt:
Now consider what’s happened to the Republican brand over the last few years. In 2006, the GOP lost badly during the off-term elections, in no small part because Florida Congressman Mark Foley was cruising congressional male pages like an old dude skating solo at a roller rink.
About a year later, Larry Craig from the flinty Republican state of Idaho, was caught, legs akimbo, using sign language in a men’s room to signal to a stall mate that he’s a huge fan of Ang Lee’s films.
The press and Hollywood have spent the last three years making it sound like people become Republicans so they can flood New Orleans, ruin the economy, torture Muslims, listen to everyone’s phone calls, and make a ton from selling papier maché bulletproof vests to the troops.
To cap it off, John McCain, renowned for driving the GOP base batty by bebopping and scatting all over his own party in order (according to his conservative detractors) to win praise from The New York Times, actually won the nomination.
In short, you don’t have to be a political scientist to understand why Republican self-identification has been at a 16-year low or why even many of the GOP faithful were planning on putting out their “Gone fishing” signs this November.
But things have changed. First, America is very close to flat out winning in Iraq. This shouldn’t be a partisan data point, but it is, and Republicans are starting to hold their chins high, thanks to the success of the surge, which, far more than the war, was an almost purely Republican initiative.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have managed to drive Congress’ approval ratings to near absolute zero. Also, if you don’t actually think Barack Obama is a higher life form, listening to the press talk like Princess Leia for a year – “Help us Obama Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope!” – can get really old. Republicans feel a lot like Elaine in that Seinfeld episode where she was the only person in the world who didn’t understand why everyone fawned over “The English Patient.”
Changing everything was Sarah Palin. Suddenly, conservatives not only found something to love on the GOP ticket, but the boldness of the pick suggested that the outcome wasn’t written in stone.
The tectonic plates are definitely rumbling. Partisan Democrats may not believe it, but independents and dispirited Republicans now see the McCain-Palin pick as a sharp break with Bush (McCain now has a double-digit lead over the “post-partisan” Obama among independents).