One of the great mysteries of American political history has to be Herbert Hoover’s renomination for President, in 1932.
By that summer it was obvious Hoover, and Progressivism, were doomed. His speech accepting his nomination was an exercise in denial. He claimed to have already set in motion policies to turn things around. He claimed the U.S. had done better than other countries.
Of course, conservatives claim Hoover got his revenge. The Hoover Institution at Stanford, which he founded in 1959, became a major incubator for conservative thought. By the time of his death in 1964, the roots of neo-conservatism had already been planted.
This is the kind of revenge George W. Bush is plotting. His plan for a $500 million institute is based on the idea that money, over time, can overcome any reality.
Not always.
But what all this does tell me is there is something approaching reason
in the views of what might be called the Bush Dead-Enders, that 25% of the electorate which
continues to support the President and his policies. I still see W ’04
window stickers in Atlanta, especially in neo-wealthy suburbs like
Tucker and Dunwoody. Bushism has become almost a theology, and Bush
himself a martyr figure. Thus Bushism without Bush is bound to be the theme of the 2008 Republican Presidential process, with Reagan ‘s name invoked as a holy talisman.
Is there precedent for this? Well, yes. Democrats did the same thing in 1968, using FDR as their talisman, nominating Hubert Humphrey
over the objections of their anti-war wing, a good man who had served
liberalism all his life, but who had no answers to the social
disintegration that was then obvious all around him. Just as Hoover
had no answers in 1932. Just as Republicans, with or without Bush, have no answers today.
Given how obvious this is, in the early spring of 2007, nearly a year
before candidates are chosen in the de-facto national primary of
February 5, 2008 the question occurs, can it get any worse for
Republicans? Why not hang on, hang in, wait it out?
Because there are still events yet to come. The housing crisis.
Possible impeachment. An offensive that sends us bugging out of Iraq.
The destruction of another American city by a storm. Another
Depression. And if you say, well, good things could happen too, well
enjoy your delusion. Let me find you a Hoover button. (Drat, sold out.)
