Professor Bainbridge makes a case for staying home this November:
God made the people of Israel wander in the desert 40 years so as to remake the Israelis into a people fit for the tasks ahead. The GOP seriously needs a time out so that it can rethink its role in American democracy. There are a lot of legitimate questions facing the GOP. Do you adhere to the limited government principles of Reagan and Thatcher or do you follow the lead of UK Tory leader David Cameron? As the Economist recently opined, “it seems likely that the Republican Party, as a number of its members are already urging, will have to embrace environmentalism and cuddly economics as the Tories were forced to.”He has a point, and more than just the Biblical one. Losing the White House to Slick Willie set the stage for the GOP comeback of 1994.
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If the choice is between choosing the lesser of 4 evils and teeing up a process by which the GOP reinvents itself for the 21st Century, I’m inclined to opt for the latter. Coupled with losing Congress in 2006, losing the presidency in 2008 will provide a pair of defeats that surely will prompt “attentiveness” on the part of the GOP leadership and the intellectual base of think tanks and academics who helped lay the foundation for the Reagan and Gingrich revolutions. Just as the Israelis had to be punished for listening to the 10 fearful spies, the GOP needs to be punished for having been seduced by Bush and DeLay. Just as the Israelis came back stronger and fitter for the tasks ahead, so might a chastened GOP.
I'm not prepared to say that I won't vote for anyone except Fred, but if the nominee is The Huckster or McRINO, there's a very good chance I will write in Charlie Brown for President.
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