Yesterday Bob Dole joined a growing number of big name Republicans in supporting the health care bill:
“Sometimes people fight you just to fight you,” he said, according to The Kansas City Star. “They don’t want Reagan to get it, they don’t want Obama to get it, so we’ve got to kill it…”
“Health care is one of those things,” he added. “Now we’ve got to do something.”
Following that Eric Erickson at RedState posted the following:
I am told quite reliably that in a meeting today on Capitol Hill, Republican Senators began to rapidly move toward concessions on health care because they are afraid they cannot hold their members. Some Republicans are now thinking of supporting a government program.
That has been followed by a lot of chatter from the right wing blogs, mostly echoing their disgust with the GOP.
The problem is that the GOP spent all their energy on being the party of no, instead of working towards a compromise. Not one single Republican has offered an alternative plan to healthcare, including the man who came in second to become the 44th President. And while the GOP spent the last several months yelling, screaming and stomping their feet like a child unable to talk his parents into buying the latest and greatest toy, the GOP has missed out. They saw a little support in August from the townhalls, but that support is long gone. The public wants change, and while they are still split over exactly what change, most are favoring a public option.
When the bill is passed and the dust has settled then the GOP needs to step back and take a serious look at their actions. They love to talk about how much the public disapproves of the Democrats in Congress or Congress overall, but they seem blind to the fact that their own approval numbers are dismal in comparison.
The Republicans need new leadership for starters. They need to drop McConnell, Boehner and Cantor. These three have been the faces of no. Their idea of compromise is that the Democrats give them everything they want. In what world is that compromise? In what world is holding you breath and saying “no” over and over again leading? If any of these men were true leaders they would have got their brightest minds together months ago and prepared an alternative bill, not a list of what they don’t like about the currently proposed legislation.
Until the Republicans start looking at their own faults instead of bashing the Democrats they will continue to be a minority and a laughing stock. How can they be expected to lead a branch of our government when they can’t even lead their own party? The Democrats saw this same problem in the early part of this decade and they quickly overcame it, with a lot of help from the blogosphere. Unfortunately for the Republicans they have a blogosphere that is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the right today – from tea baggers to birthers.