Republican Mistakes:

While most of the pundits think the Republicans will do well in the upcoming elections it may be the last time that will be true. You may ask why I should say something that sounds so foolish. Let’s consider the basic facts about America. America is basically a democracy. With very few exceptions the party that gets the most votes wins the election. I admit that there can be slight irregularities such as happened in 2000 where the candidate with fewer votes was declared the winner.

The election of 2004 was largely fear driven. And Americans hate to changes horses in midstream. Recall the war in Iraq was only 18 months old and hopes were high that America would be viewed as coming to the aid of the Iraqis who had received such brutal treatment from their own leadership. So the Republican president was re-elected. What followed can only be described as a receipt for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

While there may have been no weapons of mass destruction there was no shortage of weapons of small group destruction. Rocket propelled grenades and AK-47s were everywhere. Sadly the war was well led by the generals but the peace that followed was totally botched. First we dismissed the entire army and had to start over from scratch. Then we mocked and tortured political prisoners. The century’s long animosity between Shiite and Sunni was used to leverage our position, the hope that we could play one group off against the other resulted in both groups hating America.

The astounding thing is that none of the leadership saw these errors for what they were. You can see that today with the brouhaha over the Islamic cultural site that will be built 2 blocks from where the Twin Towers once stool. Rather than saying America is the land where all religions are free to worship as they wish; protest marches have been held. Rather than defending our history of opportunity for all some on the political Right are now planning on burning copies of the Islamic holy book the Quran. Think how offended we Christians would be if the Bible were burned. But the malaise goes far deeper. Some on the right want to repeal the 14th Amendment that gives citizenship to all children born in America. Then there is the Arizona law giving the police the right to demand citizenship papers of those citizens stopped for whatever reason. Thoughts of Nazi Gestapo certainly went thru my mind.

America demographics are becoming obvious. The Hispanic part of our population is growing ever larger. If we continue to alienate sectors of America these errors in judgment will result in losses in elections. Unless the Republican Party can moderate and moderate quickly they may well become the minority party regardless of what happens in the upcoming elections.