Perfect Storm?

I've been trying really hard not to count my chickens -- memories of 2004 are still painful. But the signs just keep on coming.

First, there is this from a Newsweek article titled "Are the Faithful Losing Faith?":

If the elections for Congress were held today, according to the new NEWSWEEK poll, 60 percent of white Evangelicals would support the Republican candidate in their district, compared to just 31 percent who would back the Democrat. To the uninitiated, that may sound like heartening news for Republicans in the autumn of their discontent. But if you’re a pundit, a pol, or a preacher, you know better. White Evangelicals are a cornerstone of the GOP’s base; in 2004, exit polls found Republicans carried white Evangelicals 3 to 1 over Democrats, winning 74 percent of their votes. In turn, Evangelicals carried the GOP to victory. But with a little more than two weeks before the crucial midterms, the Republican base may be cracking.

The fact that six in ten fundies still believe in Tinkerbell is disheartening. But 14 percent attrition should translate into a huge shift at the polls. And I'm guessing that for every Evangelical who is willing to speak the name of the devil (D, Pelosiville), there must be at least one more who won't go that far, but won't quite make it to the polling booth, either.

But even more remarkable is this, from Derbyshire @The Corner on National Review Online:

Look, we're not ever likely to get a govt. that follows a purely conservative line on all issues. We are an influence, that's all, and that's all we can reasonably hope to be. But when faced with a GOP government intent on massively expanding the welfare state, on open borders, and on "nation-building" in remote places, we should acknowledge that we are being no influence at all. We have gone from being an influence for good policies to being an enabler of bad policies.

The only thing we can usefully do then is to assert our existence as a voting bloc in the one way that's available to us: by not voting. That lays down a warning to any future GOP administration that might be tempted to go as badly wrong on important conservative issues as this one has.

This nation survived Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; it will survive Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel. Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, when our kids are voters, some GOP administration and Congress might be tempted to violate core conservative principles as egregiously as this one has. But they will hear key voices, the voices of party elders and wise commentators, warning: "Remember the Great Congressional Massacre of '06! Let's not risk that happening again!" And Congress and the admin. will then turn the wheel to the right.

So stay home Nov. 2nd—-Er, for the sake of the children.

Of course, staying home on November 2nd will be a rather hollow gesture, since election day is actually Nov. 7th. I'm not sure if this is like the mailers sent out to Democratic voters urging them to head to the polls the day after the election in 2004, or just another Republican wrong on the facts.

In any event, if the Bush party is losing the fundamentalists and losing the (self-styled) principled conservatives, what's left? Monarchists, neofascists and thieves.

In a few weeks we will find out if that (and a smidge of Diebold) is enough.