Conservative Donnybrook

I have been struggling for the last several weeks against the urge to begin referring to Barack Obama as President-elect Barack Obama. All indications are (until today, see awb’s post) that McCain had thrown in the towel, signed up James Baker as his campaing advisor and moved on with his life.

However, saying such a thing would be imprudent for the following reason. If those who are disposed to vote Republican (notice I did not say conservatives) were to disdain the voting booth because the election were foregone (indeed, many people vote only in national elections, but vote in local elections while in the booth), the Senate and House races might be skewed in a Democratic direction. The nation’s future is dependent on Republicans’ ability to filibuster. We are going to lose seats. We are almost certainly going to lose the presidential election. Obama will likely inherit a strongly Democratic House and Senate. Our only hope to obstruct his Marxist agenda is the threat of filibuster. As much as I hate to say it, the Democrats have cleared the way even to our filibustering of judicial nominees. We should take every opportunity we have to obstruct their ascendency. In the meanwhile, it is my fervent hope that our thrashing at the voting place will cause conservatives to reexamine their priorities and reorient them to more traditional modes of governance.

This presidential election may be lost. But, the governance of this country still hangs in the balance. It is important to vote in our local elections. Let us resolve to preserve our ability to filibuster and fight another day. The last two times that a Congress was so skewed as to prevent the filibuster was during the 30s – the New Deal – and during the 60s – the Great Society. Each of those periods profoundly changed the way America operates. We have not recovered from either and there is little hope that we can even roll back the innovations that were wrought even in the latest of those transformations. Vote on November 4. Vote for whomever pleases you for president, but preserve a Republican majority in the the House and Senate.