Denver Metro Young Republicans

Dead? What’s dead?

• Well, the amnesty bill, for one thing. Strong public opposition to this abomination — strong enough to jam the Capitol switchboards for days — was just barely enough to turn the tide against cloture, leading to a vote of 53 to 46 against (with only the Senator in the hospital sitting this vote out). Sen. Allard voted nay (hooray!), Sen. Salazar voted yea (no surprise, since he was one of the many fathers of this misbegotten bill).
• The presidential ambitions of John McCain, for another. Not only did he vote for cloture, but he too was a vocal proponent of the amnesty, and his conduct regarding the GOP base during this whole affair has only reinforced his reputation as being a self-absorbed elitist. If he had any hope of courting conservatives before this bill was brought forth, he certainly doesn’t now.
• Likewise, the candidacy of Sam “Switchback” Brownback, who will now be facing comparisons to John “I voted for it before I voted against it” Kerry due to his last minute, purely opportunistic switch from yea to nay.
• George Bush’s political credibility, whatever he had left. I personally lost a great deal of respect for the man during his Harriet Miers escapade, and he’s done nothing to restore it…indeed, it seems that he has gone out of his way over the past two years to screw over the conservatives who were once a solid chunk of his base due to the GWOT. I guess that’s what we get for nominating a “compassionate conservative” (read: liberal) instead of the real thing. Unfortunately, this is the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t downside to this controversy: having alienated the base (in particular, conservative Senators and Representatives), he will have a hard time gaining support from them in the upcoming war-funding battles.
• The special glow of Joe “The One Sane Democrat” Lieberman, who in voting for the bill has reminded those on the right who may look on him favorably as a pretty sensible guy which party he actually works for (even if his fellow Democrats despise him almost as much as they do President Bush).
• If there is any justice at all in the universe, Lindsay “Just Shut Up!” Graham’s chances of running unopposed in the upcoming primary. I don’t know whether any Republicans will challenge Graham in his reelection bid in 2008, but if so, I’ll bet there will be a major, nationwide effort among conservatives to fund him/her (Laura Ingraham has already suggested doing this). Enough is enough.
• Any hopes Democrat presidential candidates Clinton, Obama, and [snicker] Biden may have had of effortlessly harvesting the votes of independents. Sure, independents may be (justifiably) fed up with the shenanigans of the GOP in Congress and the White House over the past several years, but with all three of these “alternatives” voting for cloture on the amnesty bill, many of these voters will now be taking a closer look at all of the candidates.

Unfortunately, like an installment in a B-movie horror franchise, the climactic dispatching of the bloodthirsty hellcreature at the end of the show doesn’t mean it’s really dead…so long as there is money to be made, the monster will return, again and again, no matter how thoroughly it is killed off “this time”. Just as I expect the blood-curdling Revenge of 1072 to make its Denver premiere sometime during the next session, I am certain that we have not yet seen the last installment in the Bush-produced, Kennedy- and Ried-directed amnesty saga.