Republicans' Self-Destruction

Yesterday's dramatic defeat of the bailout bill on the House floor shot shivers down my spine and made me really worried about the future of our (and world's) economy. But, a small moment of gratification came when I realized that by defeating the bill, the House Republicans were self-destructing.

First, they threw McCain under the bus. In the past 2 weeks, McCain proceeded to "put the country first" by dramatically suspending his campaign, running around the Capitol Hill, pretending to frantically call people from his D.C. campaign headquarters, and railed against Obama's supposed exploitation of the situation for political purposes. He returned to the campaign trail yesterday, triumphantly claiming nothing less than a Napoleonic victory in rallying the Republican support for the bill. Literally, an hour later, the traders on the stock-market and millions of Americans watched the bill go down in one of the most memorable moments on the floor of the American House of Representatives. The market proceeded to lose more than 7% of its value, marking the greatest one day plummet in the history of capitalism. Thanks McCain for your wonderful and effective leadership. I guess experience does count.

More than wrecking McCain's campaign, the House Republicans probably destroyed the Republican party for years to come. While they voted NO primarily with their re-election chances in mind (and taking into account the anger from their constituents regarding the bailout bill) it is certain that their vote plunged the economy even further into the abyss. The fact that many of them justified voting NO by clinging to the right-wing narrow-minded ideology of Reagan that sees any regulation as the ultimate evil--the very ideology that got us to where we are--ensured that it would be the Republicans who would be blamed for the failure of the bill and the continuing deterioration of our collective economy health.

Yes, it is true that many Democrats also voted NO, but let's remember that the Democratic leadership lived up to its end of the bargain and delivered more than 60% of its caucus. Thus, once the voters realize just how necessary this bailout had been they will swiftly turn around and blame their representatives for furthering wrecking their daily lives. Voters are fickle. While many of them don't support the bailout right now, the polls show that most of them are simply confused about the details of it. Had the Republicans had the political courage and principles to stand in front of the American people and explain why this was necessary after the Bush Republican Party wrecked our economy, they might have gotten some political benefit out of it. This way they will be blamed for putting their re-election bids ahead of the country's interests.

David Brooks rarely says anything I agree with, but I couldn't agree with him more this morning when he said in his NYT editorial: "House Republicans led the way and will get most of the blame. It has been interesting to watch them on their single-minded mission to destroy the Republican Party." No amount of spin can save them from a devastating defeat in November.