The Incredibly Shrinking GOP

We might as well gloat while we can, because in 15, 20 years or 30 they'll be back, seeking another "permanent majority" -- the Rove Juniors and DeLay Juniors and Gingrich Juniors and some version of a junior Bush Jr.; you get the point, another crop of supply-siding jingoists who can rely on the American electorate's short memory and historical ignorance to inaugurate yet another conservative revolution.

This one, however, is as dead and disgraced -- make that disgraceful -- as a movement can get. When Christopher Buckley, the son of fusion conservatism's Prime Mover, can without a dram of disingenuousness say "I haven’t left the Republican Party, it left me," and furthermore have his father's magazine eagerly his accept his resignation, then the party, so to speak, is over.

And its national rout is beginning to take on epic contours.

Last night we found that a biracial liberal -- I prefer "pragmatist" but shall momentarily bow, for argument's sake, to convention -- is now leading in the presidential contest by a virtually insurmountable 14 points.

And just as comforting? The GOP's old tricks are as dead as its movement. Reports the New York Times on its poll's findings: John McCain's "angry tone and sharply personal attacks … appear to have backfired and tarnished" the shooter.

That -- anger and personal attacks -- was, of course, the third leg of conservative (read radical) electioneering, its delivery vehicle for the insipid offerings of free-lunch government and hypernationalist chauvinism. But this time it misfired, big time, and its impotence will leave Republican tacticians scratching their heads. They'll have to play nice for a while, and that, decidedly, is not who or what they are.

But back to the rout's epic contours, for they expand far beyond the executive (which in itself erects a rational firewall in the judicial).

As the Times reported last week -- which I've been meaning to get to for days, but events, as a Republican pollster said of McCain's difficulties, have conspired against me -- "the economic upheaval is threatening to topple Republican Congressional candidates … [with] analysts now predict[ing] a Democratic surge on a scale that seemed unlikely just weeks ago, with even some Republicans in traditional strongholds fighting for their political careers, and Democratic leaders dreaming of ironclad majorities."

For the GOP, it's a bloody mess of a killing field out there. For others, it's Oh happy days.

The House operates (to be charitable) by a simple(ton) majority, which the Dems already have, so their numerical expansion there is of less criticality than in the Senate. Nonetheless "Democrats say they could capture a dozen of the 26 Republican seats left open by retirements, and challengers are closing in on Republican incumbents in Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, New York and elsewhere."

Hence all eyes, as they say, have turned to the upper house, where a split decision is still possible but looking less likely each day.

The analysts are reliably divided, with some, such as the nonpartisan Stuart Rothenberg, predicting "that Democrats could gain as many as six to nine Senate seats," while Democratic analysts themselves "say they feel confidently ahead in five Senate races where they hope to pick up Republican seats, and they believe their candidates are running competitively in seven more."

So a filibuster-proof Senate is theoretically possible. By that I don't mean the magical number of 60 Democratic seats -- that possibility is more than theoretical, it's self-evident. It's the filibuster-proofing part that's tricky, given internal ideological divisions, geographical differences as reflected in policy preferences, petty rivalries, etc., etc.

In fact, some Democratic leaders may privately dream of 59, not 60, seats, thus providing the splendid convenience of political cover.

But, whatever. Of more immediacy is tonight's debate, although it's hard to see how John McCain -- who, by the way, is helping to drag down-ballot Republicans to ruin -- can turn much of anything around or help himself to any notable degree. If he's aggressive, his performance will be interpreted as desperate and cranky; if casual, as resigned to defeat.

He's boxed himself in but good, as did his party, long ago. But do your gloating now, because they'll be back.