Jonah Goldberg: Don’t Get Giddy Libs
NRO’s Jonah Goldberg has a must-read piece in this weekend’s Jewish World Review.
Every few years the commentariat becomes fixated on the great American conservative “crack-up.” These bouts of panic tend to coincide with lame-duck presidencies and low poll numbers, but epidemics can break out at any time. When they do, conservatives holler (a la the Six Million Dollar Man), “We can’t hold it, she’s breaking up!” Liberals yell, “Whoopee!” We’re in just such a moment now. Every few weeks, a new book rolls out decrying George W. Bush’s apostasy from the One True Faith (variously defined). Suddenly, conservative writers have found op-ed pages more welcoming as they lament the unraveling of this, the implosion of that, and the betrayal of the other thing.
Gleeful liberals and conservative Chicken Littles are misreading the data. Liberals, as is their wont, are letting their schadenfreude get the better of them. They see libertarians banging their spoons on their highchairs, Christian “zealots” pounding their Bibles, and Republican moderates shaking their New York Times with a harrumph over their whole-grain breakfasts, and gloat: “Aha, the conservative coalition is falling apart!” The trouble is that fighting like cats and dogs is what winning political coalitions do. There is a center-right political majority in American politics and there has been since Ronald Reagan. This “red-state coalition” would not exist if the electorate tilted left.
If all you had to go by was the Agenda Media agents like Jim VandeHei, Frank Rich or Tom Raum, you’d think that the GOP was in utterly dire straights. Nothing could be further from the truth. While I’m not predicting a great GOP landslide (far from it), I’m perfectly comfortable predicting that Democrats won’t retake the House or Senate this November.
While liberal predict that the GOP will get their heads handed them this November, I know that they won’t because we’re far more conservative than pundits and Democratic strategists are willing to admit.
If you listen to Michael Barone’s analysis or Jayson Javitz’ and Alex McClure’s analysis of the races, you get a totally different picture of the political landscape.
Jayson especially has been good about what I call the ‘Quiet Side of Politics’ recently. He’s cited the growth of the biggest counties in the U.S. In each of the top ten counties, President Bush’s vote totals jumped dramatically. Democrats running in those counties will have tough sledding, meaning that there’s alot more safe House seats than the Agenda Media would have you believe.
Alex has provided valuable analysis of the political landscape, too, especially in Pennsylvania. Alex seems to think that Bob Casey won’t be a great campaigner. After Alex’s predictions in 2004, I’ll take his word on things.
Be sure to read Jonah’s entire column. It’s well worth reading and then some.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing