When you step back for a minute and think about it, you realize it's much easier to be a Republican politician than it is to be a Democratic one.
All a Republican has to do is talk about "personal responsibility," as in "anyone who took out one of those sub-prime mortgages should have known better and been more responsible." By making the sub-prime crisis merely a failure of personal responsibility, nothing in the mortgage, banking, and securities industries needs to change. No regulation necessary, no accountability required of big corporations, run by people with multiple college degrees, that preyed on people too uneducated to even understand what was going to happen down the road.
All a Republican has to do is wave the flag, wear a flag pin, and insist that any war America fights is an honest and just war that requires the support of all the American people. No need to question the decision of the president to go to war. No need to question America's foreign policy. Just assume America is always right, and America's enemies are always evil. No need to strain your brain and study a little history, or insist that your leaders tell you the truth.
All a Republican has to do is blame the government for everything that is wrong in America. Taxes are too high and the bureaucracy too big. Elect me and I'll make life better by lowering your taxes, eliminating federal programs, and giving you more freedom to spend your own money. Never mind that I've promised this before and have not delivered. Never mind that Republican administrations always bring on recessions and massively increase federal debt. Never mind that Republicans are even bigger porkers than Democrats. This time will be different. This time, I'll lower taxes, balance the budget, eliminate pork and lower the deficit.
All a Republican politician has to do is say they are "pro-life," which of course means they are against abortion and want fetuses to have legal rights. Saying one is "pro-life" is a great way to seem compassionate and civilized, as well as godly, but still be able to enact all kinds of policies that hurt the living. If one says they protect the life of the fetus, one can be forgiven for not funding programs for the already born like the Children's Health Care Initiative, or refusing to give all citizens access to health care, or sending men and women off to die in an immoral and unnecessary war, or sending those who survive back again and again, pushing many of them to commit suicide, or allowing people to drown in New Orleans, or linger for days in a sports stadium without food or water.
The bottom line is this: Democrats believe in the power of government to assist people with the necessities of life like health care, roads and bridges, retirement security, disaster relief, and schools, especially during tough economic times, or when no matter how hard you work you simply can't make ends meet. Democrats believe that only government can regulate industries so that they don't prey on the citizens and take away their ability to support themselves and get ahead. This kind of governance requires leaders who are wise and thoughtful, who don't view government as evil, and who work hard to get the balance right between personal responsibility and government responsibility.
Republicans don't have to do this. Since Republicans want to reduce the federal government so that all it does is keep a strong military, they don't have to feel bad about not helping hurricane victims, the elderly, the young, or the poor. They can insist people work hard to purchase their own health insurance (even when health insurance has become unaffordable for many), de-fund the public school system by allowing the private sector to make education into a for-profit industry, allow roads and bridges to be the responsibility of state and local governments, which can't afford them, reduce the Social Security trust fund by allowing young workers (whose payments into the system are what allows it to keep going) to opt out and create private accounts, and let private groups, like non-profits including churches, provide meager disaster relief for hurricane victims.
Anyone who suffers as a result of these policies, according to Republicans, have only themselves to blame. Seniors who didn't - or couldn't - save for retirement were foolish. Children whose parents can't afford private schools will be stuck in the remnants of a defunded education system. Homeowners who lose their homes because of deceptive loans, should have read the fine print and known they couldn't afford these loans. And people who get sick and don't have health insurance are just too lazy and irresponsible to earn the money to pay for it.
You don't have to be exceptionally intelligent to be a Republican politician. All you have to do is spout a few talking points about the evils of taxes, abortion, America's enemies, and the federal government and insist your well being, your education, your health care, is totally up to you.
You don't have to be very bright to be a Republican voter. You don't have to think. You can let Rush Limbaugh do your thinking for you. And you can vote for a presidential candidate simply because he says he's "born again," or because he seems like a guy you'd want to have a beer with, or because he claims he's a "maverick," or is considered a "war hero," or likes to call you "my friends."
The only good thing about Republicans is that there don't seem to be as many of them this year.
