Since Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, the great political narrative has been about Hillary Clinton's relentless and futile pursuit of the presidential nomination and how it is destroying the Democratic Party.
Malarkey.
The Democrats' long, competitive primary race has allowed them to receive more media attention, raise more money, register more voters and create greater grassroots organization in more states than Republicans could dream.
A few months of intra-party squabbling isn't going to do serious damage to a major political party. Years of unprincipled leadership, however, will. That's a lesson that Republicans still haven't learned despite the drubbing they received at the polls in 2006.
Never mind the ephemeral acrimony between the Obama and Clinton camps. If you want a picture of a party that's self-destructing, look at the Republicans.
In three successive special elections this year, Republicans have lost congressional seats in ruby red districts. First came Illinois' 14th Congressional District, the birthplace of Ronald Reagan, a seat vacated by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and one Republicans have won 37 out of the last 38 elections.
Then came a loss in Louisiana's 6th Congressional District. Republicans had prevailed there in every election for three decades.
Last week, Republicans gave up another seat in Mississippi's 1st Congressional District, which George Bush won by 25 points in 2004 and the previous GOP incumbent won by 32 points in 2006. Democrat Travis Childers was able to prevail over Republican Greg Davis by reaping rural voters in places like Lee County — as in Robert E. Lee.
After Illinois, Republican ostriches tried to dismiss the loss as the peculiar results of a dysfunctional state party and a weak candidate. A press release from the National Republican Congressional Committee noted, "The one thing 2008 has shown is that one election in one state does not prove a trend."
After Louisiana, there were far fewer head-in-the sand rationalizations. Newt Gingrich warned of a disaster for congressional Republicans in November if they failed to show signs of real change.
After Mississippi, most Republicans began to realize 2008 is shaping up a lot like 1974. In the first part of that year, Republicans lost four out of five special elections, including one for the Michigan seat Gerald Ford vacated when he became vice president. In November, they lost 49 House seats and four Senate seats in the Watergate landslide.
Yet even if Republicans have belatedly come to realize the political trouble they're in, they're still largely clueless as to the reasons why. Taking a cue from their colleagues across the aisle, GOP incumbents and challengers are blaming President Bush.
Though Bush's unpopularity certainly doesn't help, he isn't on the ballot. And the American people have no problem distinguishing between party affiliation in Congress and party affiliation in the White House — which is one reason polls show John McCain still has a decent chance of winning the presidential race.
Rather, they have a more specific indictment against congressional Republicans, one from which McCain has managed to distinguish himself — another reason his campaign has viability.
Republicans had an opportunity following the 2006 electoral rout to develop zero-tolerance for scandal, to oppose the spendthrift ways and pork barrel spending the new Democratic majority has managed to embellish, to redefine themselves with voters and create a new compact with the American people.
Instead, Republicans continue to figure disproportionately in Capitol Hill ethics imbroglios, share in the spoils of earmarks and wasteful appropriations and fail to distinguish themselves from Democrats and from the disreputable record that cost them control of Congress.
Like addicts in denial, they haven't hit bottom yet. If this year's special elections are any indication, come November, perhaps they will.
