Doleful Dole Doles out Doubts on GOP

Bob Dole, the ex-impotence spokesman, Senator and Presidential candidate, is worried the GOP has moved too far to the right: Slate. Dole claims that neither he, Reagan nor Nixon would be able to make it in a Congress today that he believes is broken beyond repair. Rather than offering up a magical political Viagra pill, however, Dole believes the party should “put a sign on the national committee doors that says ‘Closed for repairs’ until New Year’s Day next year. Spend that time gong over ideas and positive agendas.”

While this is astute advice for a party that seems to be out of ideas, I believe the GOP still has a central organizing principle, and one that they are successfully engaging at all levels of governance: to essentially end government intervention in the market and our lives and leave their corporate brethren to chart the country’s future. Republicans may very well have had setbacks in the latest election, but that has done little to assuage them from their blockade policy toward Obama’s policies. And it is hard to argue it isn’t working. Sure, Obama did pass a small increase in taxes for those making over $250,000, but they got him talking more about paying down the debt than actually dealing with increased poverty. Other than this, Obama’s second term appears to be at a standstill. Nominations for agency heads, judges and even cabinet positions are being held up, gun control has gone back into the hinterland from a soon forgotten Connecticut grave, Obama is seriously considering reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (even as the latter is solvent for years to come) and there is no talk of a stimulus for the millions of Americans out of work.

It is the state legislatures, the courts, the schools and the public sphere where the major policy initiatives are happening, from North Dakota to Wisconsin to North Carolina, and these radical changes are going further and further in rewriting the social contract to the detriment of average Americans. What new ideas could the GOP support? They might very well get behind immigrant reform, but that is merely to help corporations find cheap labor. They aren’t going to abide a stimulus, banking or corporate reform or regulation, more progressive taxes, support for labor rights, increased assistance for the poor, campaign finance reform or any of the policies this country needs if it is to ebb the rising tide steering us toward a Plutocracy. What Dole’s statements on Fox News accomplish, in fact, is to legitimate the general nature of conservative ideology by pointing to the excesses of its most radical members. And Dole couldn’t help but take a shot at Obama, blaming him for not reaching across the aisle enough. Yet all that the President ever got for doing so is false promises and a no vote from every Republican on every piece of legislation he passed so far. Maybe Dole should go back to shilling for Pfizer – at least what he’s selling there works.