Right now, the polls are favoring Republicans in a way never before seen. Talk of gaining as many as hundred seats in the House and re-taking a Senate that had been one vote short of a filibuster-proof Democratic majority is, for the first time, seeming rather realistic. Even many Democrats will quietly and/or anonymously admit that they’ve already accepted substantial losses. The only question that remains is how big they will be.

While it goes without saying that no chickens should be counted before they hatch, I would argue that the same would still hold true afterward. Even if all that conservatives hope for comes true on election night, and the GOP takes back Congress in stunning fashion and begins a Tea Party Caucus, we should not presume that this will immediately usher in the reversal of all Obama, Pelosi and Reid have rammed down America’s throat. In fact, we will still be moving in that same Marxist direction.

To use an analogy, we’ll have lifted a foot off a gas pedal that had been mashed to the floor, but we’ll not have touched the brake yet. (To say nothing of stopping, turning around, and going hard the opposite route.) Nor will we have entirely removed Obama from the drivers’ seat, just stalemated his previous death grip of the steering wheel. As such, we’ll be coasting down the same road, heading for the same cliff, just not quite as fast. Moreover, split control of the wheel will render the vehicle essentially unsteerable until 2012.

And the road could always go downhill, allowing gravity to return us to dangerous speed. Think about the trillion-dollar tax increase coming on January 1 with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, or the ObamaCare framework already in place so that Obama can use regulatory powers and executive orders to continue its unilateral implementation in full. Not to mention what a rogue lame-duck Democratic Congress could “deem” passed on their way out the door in order to give the finger to the American people who fired them:  Cap and trade and amnesty are but two huge going-away gag gifts the sore losers could present to the country.

Whatever shape things are in, if and when the GOP takes the gavel from former speaker Pelosi (man, I love the sound of that!), the presence of an unbreakable Democrat filibuster in the Senate and Obama’s veto renders them irreversible in the short term. And, as already pointed out, Obama is not going to stop forcing leftism upon us through the two branches he has left – the executive and judicial.

So what should the strategic approach be? If 2010 is simply the battle for Helm’s Deep and 2012 is the beginning of the ultimate battle for Middle Earth at Minas Tirith, what should conservatives do in order to be most prepared for it?

For starters, the GOP “leadership” (and I use that word very loosely) of McConnell, Boehner and Steele needs to be dumped, and the sooner the better. America cannot afford a repeat of Republicans behaving like Democrats. And those three are simply too inside-the-Beltway, too infected with the same elitism, and not really committed to the cause. Even if they were, they are to fighting the Democrats to shrink government and implement conservatism what Commissioner Bud Selig was to fighting the baseball players union to implement a steroids testing policy – ineffectual, impotent and incompetent.

The GOP needs to show that they are men and women of their word, and to not be at all afraid to draw clear lines of distinction with the Democrats. The last thing they need is a leadership that will go soft in the face of that filibuster, that veto and a propagandist media determined at all costs to prop up the president they manufactured.  The very least Republicans can do it make the Democrats fully own all of the damage they’ve inflicted, by making them filibuster around the clock and pile up a stack of vetoes that even their allies in the media can’t fully hide. If they can’t be defeated now, they can at least be exposed for all to see.

That, in turn, will set the field for the battle of 2012. Now, as in ancient times, victory and defeat was determined more by who was able to dictate the location of the battle than by which military force was superior. Possessing the high ground and fighting downhill more than made up for a disadvantage in manpower or skill. If we must spend the next two years more or less coasting, it would be unconscionable to not have seized the high ground during that time so that by the time 2012 arrives we are ready to fight downhill.

Thus, the first battle may not be with the Democrats at all, but between conservatives and liberal beltway Republicans for the soul of the GOP. Taking full control of the wheel in 2012 will mean nothing if the new driver isn’t intent on stopping the car, turning it around 180 degrees, and hitting the gas.

So enjoy election night if it turns out as the trends are running now, but keep in mind that it will be much more a beginning than an end.

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill

13 Responses to “Don’t get too hyped over November”