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Political Change: An Obama promise or a Republican reality?

 

 

Since 1789 and the ratification of the United States of America, we have had Presidents representing the pulse of our Country. Though G. Washington and J. Adams did not follow the usual doctrine of Democratic or Republican, one being Independent and the other a Federalist, we have since had decades of party momentum that has shaped the views, values and representation of this great land. From the 72-year Republican dominance from 1861 and Abraham Lincoln to 1933 and Herbert Hoover, with of course a few Democrats thrown in between occupying twenty of those seventy years, without the Great Depression and its unwarranted welcome, who knows how long the party of Abraham would have remained in power.

 

This also being true for the Democrats, who upon taking this unique opportunity to switch the momentum in their favor, grabbed the next twenty years of Presidential dominance, with just two individuals, FDR and Harry Truman. The former being the architect of the New Deal, allowed him to become the only President in history to date, that has served more than two terms, remaining in office a little over twelve years. However, after this momentous occasion seemed to have revived the Democratic Party, along comes Dwight D. Eisenhower, the more liberal brand of conservatives and Senator Joseph ‘Tail-gunner Joe’ McCarthy, the radical right winged populist. Though Conservatism had yet to actually be a perplex, intriguing and broad-based followed ideology, it soon would make its mark on America, not only on the National stage, however also on the State level.

 

In 1952, a young and vibrant Connecticut born and raised Prescott Bush, ascended on Washington to Congress and the US Senate, along with Eisenhower, who became the first Republican to win the Presidency since Herbert Hoover in 1928. However, while the more progressive winged GOP member concentrated on domestic and foreign affairs with a more liberal view of politics, his son, George Herbert Walker Bush, proving his superabundance of leadership and individualist qualities, migrated south, to the oil rich likes of Odessa, Texas, in 1948. After marrying Barbara and moving to Midland and then again to Houston, the mild mannered conservative Yankee began a political dynasty, unbeknownst to him at that time, with fortune in tow, that would forever change Texas politics.

 

Though at this time, in the 1950’s, while Texas was a deeply conservative town of individuals with valued convictions, it still remained a Democratic stronghold with no Republican US Senators, and only one GOP representative in the entire 181-member state legislative body. A news reporter at the time wrote that “We have only two or three laws, such as against murdering witnesses and being caught stealing horses…and also voting the Republican ticket!” With the only real politics revolving around the Democratic primaries, it seemed unlikely that a conservative branded republican would ever gain any traction here in this State, unless of course they “reclaimed” it from the times of the mid to late 1800’s, when Republicans, and even blacks, held some power.

 

As George I began his foray into Texas politics, by losing his first bid in a hotly contested Senate race against Ralph Yarborough in 1964, he began to reshape the structure of partisan politics in Texas, with a more successful run at a more propitious time in 1966, winning a seat in the US House of Representatives. Coincided with a republican revolution that started during the Kennedy administration, the more moderate congressman ‘rubbers’, as Wilbur Mills nicknamed him due to his enthusiasm for family planning, began climbing the GOP ladder to the delight of his father Prescott and eldest son George W. or II. After running unsuccessfully for President in 1980, against the ‘Gipper’ (Ronald Reagan), he was offered the VP spot on the ticket, which landed him smack dead in the midst of a national spotlight.

 

Meanwhile taking advantage of a new style of conservatism brought forth by the likes of McCarthy, Goldwater and Atwater, a young George II, along with the nerdy and politically passionate Utah transplant, Karl Rove, began to translate that new found popularity into a whole new brand of Texas representation. Though George I flirted with the more conservatism branded religious right, the Jerry Falwell’s and Jim and Tammy Faye Baker’s, he remained quiet the moderate Republican, while George W., under the tutelage of Rove, became the more fiery conservative. As G.W. rose in the ranks quickly due to his name popularity, which most couldn’t stand, even once being referred to as being “born with a silver boot up his *ss”, he became the center piece of a Texas round-up of political cattle.

 

While in 1978, the GOP party still only held 21 of the 181 seats in the legislature, a young Rove began to see the winds a changing, blowing due south, to which most Ivy-league educated, rich and prosperous conservatives started moving, in order to escape the tax and spend liberalism of the Northeast. After the representation of a former Democrat turned Republican Phil Gramm, who won the US Senate seat in Texas; of Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who captured the other Senate seat in 19894; as well as other local state representatives, Rove turned his attention to the family legacy of Texas, the eldest of the Bushes and ran George II for Governor in 1994.

 

Though the incumbent Governor, Ann Richards, was popular and an authentic Texan southerner, she was an effete liberal, who was now out of touch with a growing conservative valued state. As GWB laid out his “compassionate conservative” agenda theme, the increase in funding began to follow. The result of course saw George W. triumph with the largest margin of victory in twenty years of Texas politics. After winning reelection handily in 1998, with 68 percent of the vote,  in a year which by the way the State Senate finally fell into Republican hands, Karl and George set their sites on the biggest house there is in electoral politics, the White House.

 

Of course we all know what happened in 2000 and 2004, the eight years GW held the title of President of the United States, however most do not know that in 2002, the Texas state Republican Party won every statewide race and finally captured the Texas House. Ironically one of the only eight members of the Texas House in 1968, Tom Craddick from Midland, now would become the first Republican Speaker, since the end of Reconstruction.  This of course leaves us as having the two Bushes, I & II, or 41 & 43, whichever you like, as the only father and son to hold the Presidency and are essentially the dynasty, along with the Rove machine, that changed the political make-up of Texas, for years and possibly centuries to come.

 

Therefore will we see a national reemergence of the GOP party with the election of Michael Steele as the RNC chairman for a Party with practically nowhere to go but up? Or will it remain stagnant and allow the Obama administration and surely a Clinton era to follow, dominant the Presidential policies for the next 16-20 years, like FDR/Truman from 1933-1953? A lot will be determined over the next four to eight years on exactly what we shall intend to see come from our nationally elected brand of politics and politicians!? However I do not believe we should allow a Party, Democrat or Republican, to define who we are as a Nation! A Country that remains largely center-to-right in its policy views and values, must no longer allow for a partisan pettiness of disbelief, take hostage an agenda of real solutions and ideas!