He [Bush] said, “I’ve got the message and we can see if I can make [it through another] election cycle articulating the difference” between the two parties. ~Lowry and O’Beirne

Mr. Bush must believe in his message, since he seems convinced that highlighting that the GOP is the Party of Immigration, Imperialism and Insolvency (in other words, standing on the GOP’s record of “accomplishments”) and emphasising how different it is from the Democrats will ensure victory.  (Does that mean the RNC will be running ads depicting Dems’ (non-existent) opposition to amnesty, foreign adventurism and fiscal irresponsibility?)  As for the slogan for the GOP that I have been using for a few months, I think a few new I-words could be added without much controversy: Ideology, Incompetence and Illegality.  We also wouldn’t want to leave out Invasion of Privacy, International Isolation, or Incredible Ignorance.  But the original slogan captures the nature of the modern GOP pretty well, so we can leave these others to the side for now. 

Here are some lines for a Republican election ad: “Conservatives have long believed that government was incapable of solving complex social and economic problems through wasteful spending, bureaucracy and naive utopian thinking, and we in the Republican Party have proved it to be true yet again.  Let us continue to be an example of why conservatives have been right about government mismanagement, abuse and corruption!  Vote Republican!” 

Or perhaps the GOP could play it this way: on immigration, on the war, on federal spending, why vote for a Democrat, who cannot really begin to match his opponent’s big-government and interventionist credentials, when you could vote for a real liberal in the Republican candidate and be sure of what you were getting?  If you like amesty, government expansion and nation-building, vote for unified government under the GOP! 

Somehow I don’t think it will be a winning slogan.