Iraq, sordid instant messages with male pages, and broadbased corruption all helped bring down the GOP majority in 2006,* but Republicans contributed even more directly to their long-term demise by increasing government spending and government power as much as they did. Every increase in government–whether pushed through by Republicans or Democrats–creates more Democrats, I explain in my Washington Examiner column today. Discussing GOP losses in Northern Virginia and Baton Rouge, an intuitive pattern begins to become manifest:

Increasing the size of government creates more bureaucrats, more government staffers, more government contractors, more lobbyists, more special-interest groups and more subsidy seekers. These folks aren’t likely to seek smaller government, so they are more likely to be Democrats or, at best, moderate Republicans.

* My comments here should be viewed through the lens of the “Dougherty Doctrine“: Michael Brendan Doughtery’s observation that “At the end of the day, the arguments [about the GOP’s electoral failures] all seem to boil down to something similar: If it were more like me, the Republican Party would be better off. It’s failing because it’s like you.” Considering that I opposed on policy grounds the Iraq war, official corruption, sending dirty IMs to children, and increased government spending, my electoral analysis is immediately suspect.