Why The Republicans Lost

Much has been written, and much will continue to be written, about what happened on Tuesday and why the Republican Congressional majority that was created in the revolution of 1994 crumbled so quickly in 2006, but I don’t think anyone has said it better than the man who led that revolution twelve short years ago:

After having watched the majority he engineered in 1994 crumble in this week’s elections, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich laid into President Bush and congressional Republicans in an Atlanta appearance Thursday.

Taking questions after a medical forum, the former GOP congressman from Cobb County said four c’s — an absence of competence in Republican performance, an absence of candor, corruption and the bad advice of consultants — led to Tuesday’s defeat.

Interestingly enough, these are failures that one can also ascribe to the Democratic-controlled Congressional leadership that was overthrown in 1994. One would have thought that the GOP would have learned from their mistakes, but, obviously, more than a decade in power has destroyed the essence of the ideas that helped Gingrich and the rest of the GOP do something that, until that day, nobody ever thought they could do — return the Republican Party to majority control of the legislative branch.

Unfortunately, the promise of what happened in 1994 was betrayed long ago.

“I remember what it felt like the night we were at the Cobb Galleria and for the first time in 40 years we won control of the House and (there was) the Contract with America and people were very exicted about welfare reform and cutting taxes and balancing the budget and all those things, and I have to say 12 years later that I’m very disappointed, but if you look at what I’ve said all year, I’m not surprised.”

As for whatRepublicans should do now, he said, “I believe the House and Senate Republicans and the White House need to take a deep breath and think very seriously about this election result, because I think we’re at a very important turning point this is either a temporary interruption of what has been a gradually consolidating center-right majority, or this is a breakdown of that center-right majority leading to a significant effort to establish a center-left government majority.”

Remind me again why we kicked this guy out of Washington ?