Al Franken's Election is No Laughing Matter

Conservative dipshit consultant John Feehery, a former staffer for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, nearly gets it all wrong in a CNN.com op-ed.

He is right that Norm Coleman, whose dogged pursuit of a lost cause finally ended this week with Franken's being declared the winner eight months later, and two other Republican senators lost their jobs because they were Republicans. He is right that the Republican brand currently has all the appeal of a Corvair (i.e., unsafe at any speed).

But where he is wrong is his idea that the Republicans will somehow gain back what they have lost by simply waiting for the Democrats to self-destruct under the weight of their own liberalism. Watching the Obama administration navigate the tough waters of health-care reform, economic stimulus, TARP loans, and the survival of General Motors, one might get the impression -- if all one did was watch cable news to form one's opinions -- that the Obama administration is missing right and left. Therefore, it would make sense for Feehery to speculate that Franken will be Obama's lifeline to continue to lean leftward. But that's just utter nonsense.

Franken may have strong liberal roots, but he's no ideologue. Like most entertainers, Franken used his show to push his view on things, just as his corpulent counterpart, Rush Limbaugh, continues to do. But he had no compelling reason to be pragmatic, to compromise. As a Senator, he now has to play well with others. Deals will need to be struck. Constituents will need to be consulted and convinced or heeded when appropriate. I predict Franken will serve ably in the Senate, learn the ropes, and be a solid Democrat.

Feehery's biggest dipshit error is to rely on poll numbers. These are the same pollsters who couldn't get the pulse in 2008's campaign because they didn't take into consideration those voters who didn't own standard land line telephones, which is how the pollsters reached those polled. The younger generation -- and many of my generation -- have given up on land lines and use cell phones and cable modems to communicate. These people don't get to participate in those polls. So the data is wholly unreliable. And it was those younger voters who put Obama in the White House. His approval ratings remain extraordinarily high. The older members of Congress who have so far failed to get on his bandwagon -- Reid, Pelosi, Feinstein -- will soon find themselves retired, by choice or by ballot, if they don't discover the real pulse of America's voters.

Feehery is like many Republicans who have doggedly refused to acknowledge the reality that, as a party, their time has past. We will not see another Republican in the White until 2024, at the earliest. My own mother, a die-hard rightie, acknowledged a few months ago that the GOP would not occupy the White House again in her lifetime. Maybe she feels differently today, but it better not be because of these polls or because of what is showing on Fox News.