The National Review asked a few right-wing political figures to try and come up with some things that the Right “can be optimistic about going into 2007.” Not surprisingly, the responses are not particularly uplifting.
Aside from taking some glee in the fact that “the American people will now hold [the Democrats] partly responsible for Iraq policy” and getting to watch “the spectacle of liberal congressional Democrats struggling to reconcile what they want to do (impeach George Bush, raise taxes, get out of Iraq, fling wide the gates to all immigrants) with what the public wants them to do,” those queried didn’t really have anything positive to offer.
Rep. Jeb Henlsarling takes some solace in the fact that the GOP might now get a chance to the things they failed to do for the last six years, such as “embrace the core conservative principles of a balanced budget, limited, accountable government, and traditional values” while Phyllis Schlafly looks forward to re-claiming the party “by outnumbering and outsmarting the false prophets of RINO politics, nation-building utopians, and globalism economics.”
Perhaps the most pessimistic response came from defeated Senator Rick Santorum who appeared to be so despondent that he could barely muster a few vague platitudes about making “judicial activism” a bigger issue – and even that was overshadowed by his own apparent sense of hopelessness:
Conservatism, of course, will never be the political disposition of a majority of Americans. Conservative objectives, however, will from time to time find the support of such a majority; the success of the conservative movement depends in large part on leaders taking advantage of such moments.
So that is what conservatives have to look forward to in 2007: Hoping the Democrats struggle while waiting for opportunities where they can take advantage of those rare occasions when the American people might fleetingly support some isolated part of their right-wing agenda.
