Democrats In Drag, Part 3
The most-heralded achievement and high water mark of Republican leadership since the revival of America’s military superiority under Ronald Reagan is, without question, the coming forth of the “Contract With America” during the election of 1994.
Its 100-day surge through the House of Representatives, with its visionary agenda and its promise and delivery of lock-arm partisan voting, is a singular feat; such a one that ever since Republicans have looked back with fondness and longing for a revival of ‘the good old days.’
Seven years later, as election 2000 approached, conservative Republicans, unhappy with the current party, unhappy with their wishy-washy candidate-in-chief (former Texas Governor George W. Bush), still held out hope that Governor Bush or some other Republican would rise up, Newt Gingrich-like, with charisma, courage and acumen, and take a firm grip on the reins of the party, take the heat, and show the American people what the Republican Party and conservatism is really all about.
But why all the nostalgia for the “good old days”? Are we really sure that they were that good and that conservative? For missing in action in this dreamy partisan memory of everything lovely is the honest reality that things weren’t so lovely after all. The conservative Contract With America was deceptively liberal, if not radical, the strong-arm “in house” tactics of its chief proponent were anything but democratic, and the same man’s established political loyalties were ironically tied to the very political movement he was tough guy-like fighting – even Clinton, Gore and the Third Way.
A few knew this from day one, but most failed to see the connection even though Newt Gingrich — give him points for honesty — laid it in the open on more than a few occasions for those who cared to listen. Few did.
