Washington is looking increasingly like plague city or a city inhabited by the living dead. We watch as fresh White House blood gets sucked by weakened Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Think back to the amazing images of the crowds on the Mall, the clear air, the new president speaking just outside the capitol and you have to wonder about who sustains the poisonous atmosphere inside that building and how so few can spread so much of that poison over the whole nation.
The Republican party on Capitol Hill is fragile, if only for a matter of years, but they won't die. They're sustained by a bought-'n'-paid-for media megaphone and little else. Beyond their range, most of America is rooting for Obama, even some key Republicans. Outside of Washington, compromise is still the way the game is played.
Leaderless after losing the White House, the party is mostly defined by its Congressional wing, which flaunted its anti-spending ideology in opposing the stimulus package. That militancy drew the mockery of late-night television comics, but the praise of conservative talk-show stars and the party faithful. In the states, meanwhile, many Republican governors are practicing a pragmatic — their Congressional counterparts would say less-principled — conservatism.
Governors, unlike members of Congress, have to balance their budgets each year. And that requires compromise with state legislators, including Democrats, as well as more openness to the occasional state tax increase and to deficit-spending from Washington.
The partnership of largely white, southern, male Republicans with right wing media has to be dissolved. That's where we come in. The economy is on our side. Think about it.
