Good morning, Netizens...

One more day to go and the citizens elect a new President of the United States. While this is a somber note on which to begin the new week, there are a host of other cheerless bits of news that bear careful introspection, regardless of which candidate you personally hope will win come Tuesday.

Based upon the polls, of which there are many, it does appear as if Obama will be elected the next President of the United States and the Democrats appear to dramatically increase their majority in both houses of Congress. Readers beware, I am not attempting to “call this election”, but rather am citing the obviousness of the polls. While I am certain a lot of the Fourth Estate will be asking what the Democrats should do with their brand-new mandate, one of my questions that remains unanswered is what will the Republicans do with the ashes they may have been handed?

I have read several learned columnists who suggest, among other things, that the Hard Right of the Republican Party will remain in office, largely unshaped by the debacle that has unfolded, while the majority of their more-centrist membership will be voted out of office. After all, the Republican base appears to be gearing up to advertise their loss not so much as a failure of conservative principles, but rather a conspiracy of the news media. A recent poll found that Republicans, by a margin of more than two to one, believe that Mr. McCain is losing “because the mainstream media is biased” rather than “because Americans are tired of George Bush.”

Just as the Democrats have members of the party who tend to drift into the logjam called leftist political extremism, the Republicans under the Bush administration have increasingly become transformed into a party of the dark right, a haven for racists and reactionaries, a cynical party that spent the Bush years in denial, as they closed their eyes to the administration's dishonesty and contempt for the rule of law. Some party members have tried to maintain that most cynical denial during the election season, quietly winking as the tactics of this campaign have grown even more and more ugly. It seems quite plausible that their cynicism and denial is what has led us to this massive rearrangement of the political spectrum.

One of these days the moderate conservatives are going to have to examine their collective face in the mirror. One of these days, perhaps sooner than one might realize, the GOP during this election season has become the party of intolerance and divisiveness while the Democrats have taken the first fledgling steps toward that maladroit term so often used during the campaign, that being of Hope.

For everyone, Republican and Democrat alike, must have hope for the future if this Great Country of ours is to endure the coming trials.

Of course, your opinions may differ.

Dave

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