'94 Republicans blame '06 debacle on GOP's putting self-preservation above nation's agenda

[DeepModem Mom]

USA Today: Republicans of '94 revolution reflect on '06
12/7/2006
By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY


(AP file photo)
Then-minority whip Newt Gingrich rallies Republican candidates for Congress in September 1994 as they pledge a "Contract with America" on Capitol Hill.

WASHINGTON — Republicans who helped capture control of Congress 12 years ago blame the party's leaders for this year's debacle at the polls.
Architects of the 1994 "Republican revolution," as well as current and former lawmakers elected that year, say the GOP repelled voters by putting self-preservation before the nation's agenda. "For the first six years of the 12 years, we were focused on policy and principles, and politics was secondary," says Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee, a member of the 1994 class who won his seventh term this month. "The second six years, politics became primary: raising money, going negative, consolidating power."

"We did more good work the first 12 hours we were in Congress than the Republicans have done in the past five years," says Joe Scarborough, a class of '94 member who resigned in 2001 and is a talk-show host. "Republican leaders who took us to the point we are right now should be ashamed."

Two-thirds of the 73-member Republican class of 1994 are gone from the House of Representatives. Twenty-four kept their House seats despite this year's rout, in which Democrats gained simultaneous House and Senate majorities for the first time since 1994. Five lost their bids for a seventh term. Two others resigned in disgrace.

Most members interviewed from the class of 1994, as well as former House GOP leaders, cite three reasons beyond their leaders' control: the war in Iraq, corruption scandals and President Bush's low popularity. Beyond that, they say leaders such as House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and former House majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas put staying in power above principles such as limited government and low spending....

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-12-07-gop-1994-2006_x.htm

[sarge43]

1. Ah, they're feeding on one another. How special.

:popcorn:

[meegbear]

2. For the first six years of the 12 years, ... politics was secondary?

So all those Clinton investigations and impeachment proceedings were just policy and principle?
FUCK YOU!

[Norrin Radd]

3. The "blame game."

I relish seeing their talking points come back to haunt them.

[Sapere aude]

4. It sounds like they are saying the repubs lost because they did not care about issues that Dems care

about and Dems won because they acted like repukes? I don't get it? Repukes never give a damn about working people and Dems always do.

[sutz12]

5. Nope...they lost because they didn't cheat hard enough...

They misjudged how much real Americans hate them.

Hopefully we can fix the vote machine debacle before we have to run against them next time.

[Lexingtonian]

6. I could have told you that

It's always the same thing: Republicans' best day in office invariably is the one on which they get sworn in, because nongovernment and misgovernment and living in the past- a politics of resentment and graft- follows. Democrats' best days are somewhere in the middle or at the end of their terms, when they've cleaned up the mess of problems and beaten back the stupidity of the opposition.

Look at the reputation of the Presidents- Nixon left office in disrepute after degrading it, Ford vanished into oblivion, Reagan left lame and pathetic, Bush Sr. nobody actually likes. Bush Jr is going to leave offices as the Moron-In-Chief of a lost war and champion of the ignorant, crazed, and obsolete. On the other side, Jimmy Carter is now something of a living legend and Bill Clinton is considered the most masterful politician and force for progress in the world of his generation.

[opihimoimoi]

7. A Bottle of your fav drink to you for a fine post....you hit it on the head...