That's the question Dick Armey asks in this excellent op-ed,
In all my years in politics, I've never sensed such anger and frustration from our volunteers--those who do the hard work of door-to-door mobilization that Republican candidates depend on to get elected. Across the nation, wherever I go to speak with them, their refrain is the same: "I can't tell a dime's worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats." Our base rightly expects Republicans to govern by the principles--lower taxes, less government and more freedom--that got them elected. Today, with Republicans controlling both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, there is a widening credibility gap between their political rhetoric and their public policies.
He goes on,
...when we let politics define our agenda, we get in trouble. The highway bill is one example in which the criterion of choice was politics. An even better example was 2003's expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drugs. This was an explicitly political effort to take health care "off the table" for the 2004 elections. I said at that time that the proposed legislation was "a case where bad politics has produced a bad policy proposal." I predicted that the deal was "bad news for senior citizens and possibly even worse political news for the Republican Party." Here is another one of Armey's Axioms: You can't get your finger on the problem if you've got it in the wind.
We've been seeing it for years, up to and including the lack of a veto used thus far in Bush' tenure in office. It is becoming more and more clear that at least congressionally, it may be time to throw the current lot out and try again with fresher blood. Part of the problem is the desire to stay on the hill once you've made it there in the first place. Political service was never meant to be a career by the founders, but for too many in Washington today, it is their career. It's good to see some other Republicans talking about it out in the open. The issue is - will anyone listen? Come 2006, it may be too late. That is all.
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