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The image shimmered on my television set, and I knew I
was supposed to be scared, very scared. But for some
reason, I did not quake or tremble at the specter of San
Francisco Liberal Nancy Pelosi
as the next Speaker of
the U.S. House of Representatives. This total lack of the
proper reaction had me worried, so I called my favorite
inside source, Ananias Ziegler, media relations director of
the Committee That Really Runs America.
He soothed my worries about not being scared. We were
just trying to define her as a national figure before
anybody else did,
he said, and you know how
campaigns go.
He shifted the subject. How are things out there in
Azularado?
he asked. It took me a second to catch his
wordplay, and I explained that even if Democrats now
controlled the governor's office as well as both houses of
the legislature and a majority of the congressional
delegation, there had been no talk of changing the state's
name from Red to Blue in any language.
You know, we hadn't been paying much attention to
your part of the country until pretty late in the game,
Ziegler explained, and so I'm still not sure what
happened. Democrat governors all the way from Montana to
New Mexico and Arizona, an organic grain farmer defeating
an incumbent senator in Montana, damn near losing the
Wyoming congressional seat and one in New Mexico.
Colorado's House delegation going from 5-2 Republican to
4-3 Democrat in just four years, and it came close to going
5-2.
Don't tell me you were clueless,
I said, pushing
hard. Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean's
50-state strategy wasn't exactly a classified
document.
Ziegler sighed. That's true. But we never took it
seriously. I mean, after his big Iowa whoop in 2004, who
was going to take Dean seriously about anything?
I see your point,
I said. But couldn't you see
what was happening on the ground?
We weren't looking that hard,
Ziegler conceded.
We had the Democrats pegged as a party of gun-taking
coastal elites. We figured we could take the Mountain West
for granted. Look how well President Bush did there in 2000
and 2004.
So until 2006 we were ignored by one party, and taken
for granted by the other,
I agreed. Hardly a recipe
for a happy region.
Ziegler chuckled. You're right about that. We tried
to nationalize the mid-term election by trying to convince
people that if they don't vote the right way, they're
supporting the terrorists. It worked before.
So why didn't it work this time?
I inquired.
Some of you folks have a strong libertarian
streak,
Ziegler replied. And you figure that the
Iraqi insurgency is less of a threat to our Constitution
and Bill of Rights than a president who claims the right to
detain people anywhere in the world and hold them
indefinitely.
There are quite a few people around here who think
that way,
I agreed. And I also noticed that
President Bush appeared in more Democratic ads than
Republican ones.
Ziegler harrumphed. I don't think we need to get into
that. Our bigger problem is that we're getting boxed in,
the way the Democrats were.
How so?
I asked.
We had them tied to the Pacific Coast and the
Northeast and the Great Lakes states, more or less,
Ziegler said. We could count on the rest. But now we're
basically a Southern party. The place we're strongest is
the old Confederacy.
So the party of Abraham Lincoln is now the party of
Strom Thurmond?
I asked.
At the moment,
Ziegler conceded. So we've got
a big challenge in front of us out there in your big square
states. You believe in a limited frugal government, but for
some reason, you've quit believing that the Republican
party will deliver that.
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