Learning to be the loyal opposition

posted at 7:30 pm on November 5, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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I’ve taken a few phone calls from friends on Capitol Hill, in the area, and from family wondering how I was taking the election results.  Most of them apparently expected me to be drinking hemlock, or standing out on the ledge.  Fortunately, hemlock is out of season in Minnesota, and my ledge is only high enough to turn an ankle if I was inclined to jump.  Other than a butt-kicking head cold, I’m feeling all right.

If one participates in politics long enough, disappointment is inevitable.  Great issues and dangerous times are always present, and elections and their results always matter.  By no means do I want to minimize the importance of elections, but the truth is that people make choices with which we don’t always agree, for reasons we don’t usually like.  In a democracy, we have to accept that as reality, and transition to other efforts that impact policy decisions until another election comes along.

Sometimes that transition is hard to make.  A few people never made that transition after the 2000 election, for instance.  It takes more than a few hours, or a few days.  But eventually, if we value democracy, we have to accept the legitimacy of those elections we lose.  Without that commitment, we can’t support democracy at all.

We now have to adjust to the fact that Republicans no longer control any of the elective parts of the federal government.  We’re now the opposition party in the House, Senate, and the White House simultaneously for the same time since the 1994 elections.  How we handle that role will help determine how long we have to remain in the wilderness, and how long it will take to rebuild our credibility.

Barack Obama is our president now, and we should respect the office while offering our dissent.  We can energetically offer our criticism for his policies, appointments, and philosophies, and I look forward to that fight.  We can let go of the issues in Obama’s past, though.  The American electorate has heard those issues and absorbed them.  His inexperience and lack of legislative track record made them relevant in the election, but they’re baked into the cake now.

President-elect Obama will be in office for the next four years, and the only issues that matter now are Obama’s actions as President.  We need to focus on those, making our counterarguments and offering common-sense policy proposals as an alternative.  We need to generate grassroots pressure on Congress just as we did with the immigration-reform bill in 2007 when we see the need, and get the Republicans to offer resistance to the radical parts of the Democratic agenda.  We need to keep track of the performance of Obama’s team, document their failures and any abuses that may occur.

In 2012, we will be able to run against Obama’s record.  He will not be able to vote “present” any longer, and he will have to commit to courses of action.  Where he follows common-sense solutions that work towards private-sector growth and American strength and security, we should recognize it, and where he doesn’t, we can present those failures to the voters when Obama runs for re-election.  We can also do the same with Congress, which has no more excuses for their failures, and make the case for divided government in 2010 — as long as we establish ourselves as worthy for leadership with American voters.

Some have said that acting like petulant children worked for the Democrats in 2006 and 2008, and scoff at the notion that we should act like grown-ups now.  I’d remind people that we lost the majorities in 2006 and the White House in 2008 not because Democrats acted like petulant children, but because Republicans acted like Democrats, especially on spending, pork, and corruption.  We can do better than that, and we’d better if we expect voters to trust us when we say we support private-sector solutions, limited government, and peace through strength.  We won’t rebuild that credibility by using personal attacks as a substitute for a real governing policy and consistency.

It’s time to get to work.

Jazz Shaw and Lady Logician have more thoughts on this topic.

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