About three days from now it will be over, or rather, about to begin. The choices made by the American people at the ballot box will take effect in January, and we will start reaping the fruit of our votes.
At this writing, it is difficult to predict the outcome. Most pollsters believe that the Democrats will make significant gains in the House and Senate, but whether those gains will be enough to take over either or both is to be seen.
Therefore, from all appearances, the Republicans will take a beating. It is only a question of how bad that beating will be. Their only hope would be if the Republican base is suddenly gripped with the urgency of the situation and votes early and often.
Why the beating? One major reason is shameless bias of the media, especially around election time.
Findings of one watchdog organization doing a study on a major media outlet revealed that about 77% of the “news” items regarding Democrats were positive and about 88% of the “news” items on Republicans were negative. I watched a little of MSNBC today, and they did a commendable job of supporting those findings.
For their part, the Republicans are trying hard to give the media plenty of ammunition—and succeeding. The media has gotten maximum mileage out of the Mark Foley scandal.
To help the media make the point that Republicans in general, and evangelicals in particular, are hypocritical on the values issue, Ted Haggard, President of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of New Life Church is contributing to the cause.
At this writing, the accusations of Mike Jones that Haggard had homosexual relations with him have not been verified. In fact, Jones failed the part of a lie detector test related to this accusation.
However, two aspects of this case seriously damage Haggard’s credibility. He first denied knowing Jones and later admitted that he did know him. He also admitted that he bought methamphetamines but denied using them. Imagine what a hostile media can do with that information.
However, Republicans have won against a hostile media before, even one armed with hurtful scandals. These are not the ultimate source of Republican woes. Nor is the war in Iraq, though the media are trying hard to make that the issue and everyone seems to be pretending that it is.
The eight hundred pound gorilla at the ballot box that no one wants to talk about is the illegal immigration issue.
Bill Bennett on his program, Morning in America, keeps asking why the Republicans aren’t making the border a campaign issue since it is such a hot item with the American people. He believes that Republicans can make the case that they would do better than the Democrats on the border issue.
However, there is no way Republicans could sell this position, because they have done nothing of substance to resolve the border problem in six years.
It is true that they have passed some election year legislation in a weak attempt to appease the voters, but most Americans realize that after the polls close, they might never get around to following through on that legislation. Lloyds of London should give odds on the chances of the seven hundred mile wall being built before Spanish is the official language of California. I’m betting on Spanish.
The Democrats don’t’ want to mention that eight hundred pound gorilla, because they have no intention stopping those millions of Democratic voter from crossing the border. Therefore, the pro-Democrat media do not want to make an issue of the border, either.
Therefore, millions of Americans will walk past that eight hundred pound gorilla as they cast their votes, and few will talk about him. However, when the votes are counted, the Republicans will discover that an eight hundred pound gorilla standing at the ballot box has quite a bit of influence.