In "Spring Pools," Robert Frost wrote: "The trees that have it in their pent-up buds, To darken nature and be summer woods, Let them think twice before they use their powers..."
Like those trees, the Minnesota Republican power might want to think twice before pursuing the strategy it has already threatened of dredging up the personal life of candidates who have the temerity to challenge Norm Coleman for his Senate seat next year. There is, of course, the question of efficacy: in the current political climate, do party leaders really believe that sliming Al Franken or Michael Ciresi or any other opponent is going to get Coleman, one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the Senate, a second-term? Such classic Rovian dirtball tactics might work in a more complacent time — like the mid- to late-1990s — but the United States today is a country in the midst of a full-scale, multi-dimensional crisis, and it is going to take more than a few juicy guilt-by-association tales of SNL's hedonistic early days to do the trick.
The second, and even more compelling reason, is that the good Senator is now and has for many, many years, been a scandal waiting to blow up. There isn't any reason to believe that in a gloves-off campaign, no enterprising blogger is going to look into the persistent — and, I have every reason to believe, true — rumors about Coleman's personal life. Why little of the dirt on Coleman has yet to come to light is unclear to me, except that there appears to be a gentleperson's understanding on the part of the mainstream media in this town to look the other way (an agreement, incidentally, that tends to validate suspicions that most reporters are liberals; the primary expression of that liberalism is for the press to bend over backward to appear fair and objective toward right-wing politicos). But the bloggosphere is a much more rough-and-tumble place than the newsroom at the
Strib or the
Pioneer Press (not to mention MPR), and there's no reason to think that the kid-glove treatment of Coleman will persist.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party ought to be worrying about a much bigger problem than trying to slide Coleman back into office. Simply put, if the United States is still bogged down in Iraq in November 2008, there isn't going to be enough of the GOP left to sweep up off the floor on the day after the election. Not that the party of Crony Capitalism and Christian fascists doesn't deserve to disappear — though I'm sure it will continue to thrive in its stronghold of the un-Reconstructed South. Unfortunately, the honorable remnant of the party will be thrown out with the bathwater. It will be a pity if our nominally two-party system ends up as a one-party party. There is a need in this country for a political party that stands for libertarian values, fiscal responsibility (well, that's at least what the Republican Party used to stand for), individual rights (once again, a once and perhaps future GOP value) and other principles once championed by the party of Lincoln. And besides, no matter what the party, one-party rule is inherently corrupting — ask Jim Wright or Dan Rostenkowski.
No, if party leaders were smart, they'd stop plotting dirty tricks and start figuring out ways to bring American troops home from Iraq — and keep the Mad Bomber in the White House from launching a pre-emptive war on Iran. Under Bush, the GOP (with a mighty assist, of course, from the Democratically controlled majority in the Senate in 2002; BTW, no Dem who voted for the
Authorization to Use Force should be allowed to run for President — ever) helped open the gates of hell in the Middle East. If they're still open in 2008, the Republican Party, like the spring pools in Frost's poem, will be swept away like "snow that melted only yesterday."
