On the Republican Base

There is a slight fear; a slight deja vu feeling to it all. Here we are, two years later, and events seem to be repeating themselves:

Most people are against the war and critical about the way it has been run by Rumsfeld, and even a seemingly good economy doesn't mean a thing to most struggling Americans.

Yet, just like two years ago, with gay marriage in the news, is the topic of conversation about to be changed again?

You can bet Rove was celebrating the New Jersey Court decision of last week. Here was finally what the Republicans have been hoping for since Bush's "I have a mandate" speech backfired and started the downfall of the Republican Party. Here was, finally, a hope of restoring the faith of the Republican base.

But much has changed in the last two years, which makes the New Jersey decision meaningless for Republicans, and this is clearly evident in debates and Republican talking points: While in 2004 the GOP was successful in creating an illusion of positive All-American values, the topics of conversation are different now.

They try to scare voters with threats of taxes, trying to paint themselves again as the party of laissez-faire small government, but ask any Republican who had invested money and time on gambling websites and it's evident that the GOP is now considered by a majority of Americans the Big Brother party. Billions of Dollars in deficit is not something they can hide with threats of taxes or with speeches about trickle-down theories. The more they mention taxes the more people think about what the last six years have done to the country's economy and the more hypocritical they all seem.

Speaking of hypocrisy: between a book detailing the contempt Republican leaders feel for religious leaders and daily scandals involving Republicans, it is clear the religious "base" is not motivated anymore. "If we mobilize all our voters, we'll do well on Election Day," says John Boehner. Well Mr. Boehner, you should have thought about that before you gave away the government to lobbyists and mobsters, before you let pedophiles ruin the lives of children, before you let incompetent fools run FEMA and the Pentagon, before you gave the Vice President a gun permit, before you claimed a brain-dead woman smiled at her birthday as you let thousands drown in New Orleans.

John Boehner and Carl Rove want to mobilize the base, and they hope a threat of gay marriage will do that, but when people who actually feel threatened by the prospect of gay marriages have two parties to chose from, they cannot vote for the party of scandals and world-wide destruction. The days of the Republican Party base are over.