Too long in power, GOP has lost its way

Shock and outrage finally came out of Washington D.C. after Democrats won a third GOP congressional seat in a special election last week in Mississippi. President Bush had carried the district with 62%, and it had been Republican since 1964.

This follows similar losses of long term GOP seats in Illinois and Ohio in recent special elections. Based on these results, many are forecasting disaster for the party this November.

Retiring Virginia Congressman Tom Davis, a moderate who led the House GOP Campaign Committee to the disasterous 2006 losses, wrote a 20-page analysis of the standing of the party, after the Mississippi loss. He's a fine one to talk, since he's quitting and opening another strong GOP district to a Democrat, and he led the debacle made worse by a pallid GOP campaign effort in 2006.

You might say he's hitting the nail with his head. Nonetheless, he does correctly diagnose that too many congressional scandals involving Republicans, a President badly out of touch with everyday America and a congressional GOP leadership that is too happy with the crumbs the Democrat majority gives them--is a the root of the problem.

The last time this happened, it took a revolution led by Newt Gingrich in 1994, giving the GOP its first House majority since the Eisenhower administration. His Contract with America, reforms in the congressional way of doing things--which have all been abandoned--and new faces turned things around. Defeatist old hacks like Minority Leaders Bob Michels in the House and Hugh Scott in the Senate were swept away by the fresh vision.

That needs to happen again. Who will rise up? Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Rep. Michael Pence of Indiana or someone else? It's no time to accept the status quo, The current group, led by Ohio Rep. John Boehner, have "hack" and "defeat" written all over them.

Maybe a disasterous 2008 loss in Congress, and even the presidency, will be the broom that sweeps clean. Afterall, a President Obama would probably be the new Jimmy Carter. And we all know what happened to him.