UPDATED: AUG 22, 2007

            “THE PERMANENT REPUBLICAN PRESIDENCY, PART 2:
              HOW THEY WILL ACHIEVE IT” 

If any Democrat, Presidential candidate, elected representative, or rank-and-file supporter, thinks that the 2008 election will be a slam-dunk for the Democrats, as many readers of the The Political Junkies know, they have another think coming.  Is George Bush the worst President our country has ever had?  In terms of the Constitution and what is in the best interests of the majority of the American people, certainly (see my column TPJ 121, 9-14-06).  On the other hand, in terms of what he and the people who put him in office set as their principal goals, as I have shown in a recent series (TPJ 155-158), he is actually the most successful President the United States has ever had.   

But there is the War on Iraq, there is the destruction of Constitutional Democracy, there is the crumbing of the nation’s infrastructure, there is the looming debt-crisis of which we have just had a taste, and so on and so forth.  So how will the Republicans go about achieving Karl Rove’s reconstituted dream, transmogrified from the “Permanent Republican Majority” to the “Permanent Republican Presidency,” designed to achieve their equivalent of the Thousand-Year Reich in one way or another?  Well, there are two factors.  One is the strategy that has been so well-developed by Rove, Cheney, and their staffs that began its operations with Bush’s first Presidential campaign.  These one might term the pro-active factors.  Then there is the series of mistakes that the Democrats may very well make in 2008 that would make the Republicans’ job that much easier (which I will be dealing with next week).  Karl Rove is gone from the White House.  But he will hardly be forgotten.  In my view, in fact, after a bit of down-time to recharge his ”mobilizing the hate” batteries, he will be very much of a factor in the 2008 elections.  Even if I am wrong about the person, his strategy and tactics will be very much present. 

As I have many times talked about in this space, first and foremost among the pro-active factors is the primary Lee Atwater mantra: “Always Attack; Never Defend.”  As readers of my columns know, sometime ago I projected that Rudy Giuliani would be the Republican nominee.  Nothing has happened in the last six months or so to make me change my mind.  First and foremost he is the best practitioner of that technique, a skill he had before he became Mayor of New York City and which he honed to perfection while he held that position.  On his own stuff: Marital issues?  “My business, not yours, why are you asking, you shouldn’t be.”  Relationship issues with his children?  “Everybody’s got them.  How do you get along with your kids?”  On more serious issues, such as the location of the Mayoral Command Center within spitting distance of the previously attacked World Trade Center when his own security experts told him it should be located in Brooklyn: “What are you, some kind of security expert?”   

Second, on policy.  As we all on our side know very well, Iraq is a literally bloody mess which among many other bad things is creating terrorists and making the US less secure.  So what is Giuliani’s response?  “If you elect Democrats our country will always be on defense; under the Republicans (especially me), we will always be on offense.”  As for details, like time, cost, how our armed forces are going to handle that strategy, exactly, and indeed exactly what is the strategy, “what are you, some kind of defeatist?”  And so on, and so forth, down the line.   

Third, an essential element of the Rove strategy is the mobilization of hate.  He did it in 2000 with the subliminal messages on race.  He did it 2004 with the very open messages based on homophobia.  The Big Target in 2008 will be the “Illegal Immigrants.”  Many observers thought that Bush lost big when the immigration law reforms that he supposedly supported went down to defeat in Congress.  Actually, the outcome was just what the Republican Party wanted: no legislation.  Now they can run on the issue as hard as they want to and they may well pull over to their side many working-class folks who would otherwise vote Democratic in states where illegal immigration has had a real impact on everything from the schools to the infrastructure to jobs.  They will have no workable solutions (see the current draconian bill that Sen. Lindsey Graham is currently offering, supported by the none other than that fake “moderate” Republican John McCain).  But it may prove to be a more powerful weapon even than Atwater’s Willie Horton ad was.  (Giuliani’s recent relatively moderate stance on the issue is a puzzlement to me, but we will see how it unfolds, especially if he does indeed get the nomination.) 

Fourth, for over the past seven years, Rove has honed the Big Lie Technique to Republican perfection and they will just keep repeating the same lies --- “We’re winning in Iraq; the Democrat Party is just a bunch of terrorist-lovers” --- over and over again.  “Swift-boating” will seem mild compared to what they will use next time around. 

Fifth, as an extension of the Big Lie Technique, they will speak out of both sides of their mouths, especially if the nominee is Giuliani.  Take his position on the so-called “values” questions.  On the one he hand says, “I have consistently held to my positions on abortion, gay rights and what have you” (in contrast of course to his principal rival, Mitt Romney who indeed fits the definition of “flip-flopper” to a T).  “But, you can be sure that I will appoint ‘strict constructionist’ judges,” spewing forth the well-know code-word for anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-civil rights judges, and most importantly Supreme Court Justices.   

Sixth, they will run away from Bush, although not acknowledging that they are running away from Bush --- another example of speaking out of both sides of their mouths.  However, while appearing to be running away from Bush they will of course play their “national security” card.  It’s a fake card, sort of like the middle one in Three Card Monte, but they will play it to the hilt, charging anti-patriotism, “abandoning the troops,” defeatism, “support of the terrorists,” all the way to Ann Coulter’s “ ‘Liberal’ equals ‘traitor’ “ mantra.  Permanent Fear and Permanent War will become totally intertwined, supporting each other in an endless downward spiral. That the facts support none of these claims is immaterial.   

Seventh, they will run against the Democratic Congress, at the same time, of course, that CheneyBush have made it virtually powerless.  But the only strength (in relative terms) the Democrats have is the Congress.  The Republicans will blame Congress for all the faults of “government.”  They will blame Congress for trying to bring an end to the Iraq War.  They will blame Congress for any “breaches of national security,” because they are “spineless.”  In fact, I think that they regard it as a good thing that the Democrats won the Congress in 2006, for they have an organ of government to blame for their own failures, and they do it over and over again.   

The Georgites have achieved every one of their major policy objectives except the repeal of Social Security.  And if nothing is done to shore up its financial position (which if steps were taken now would not require much), as the population ages it will eventually collapse of its own weight.  As long as they hold the White House and have 40 Senators no significant legislation will ever get out of Congress because of the filibuster provision (which Republicans are using to a fair-thee-well but Democrats didn’t when they could have) and if it by some miracle it were to, of course 34 Senators uphold the veto. 

Finally, they will cheat, just as they did in 2000 and 2004.  The journalist Greg Palast is one of the best sources on what they have done over the years and how they have done it (http://www.gregpalast.com/) and an excellent, non-journalistic website is http://www.blackboxvoting.org/.  They may not have the direct access to the voting machines as they did in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.  But they can still hack.  Further, a major cause of the Rove-organized firing of selective US Attorneys was the fact that they refused to pursue the almost invariably fraudulent “voting fraud” cases aimed at removing minority voters from the lists. 

And so, Rove set out to establish his 1000 year Reich (oh, sorry, "Permanent Republican Major-ity").  He has totally failed in achieving the latter.  But the Permanent Republican Presidency is well within his grasp and that of his Party and controllers.  Next week we will take a look at what the Democrats can do to insure that outcome (and yes, you read that right!)  Have a great week.

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