Can't Anybody Here Play this Game?

Our hearts go out to the distraught Republican leadership after losing three in a row special elections that were held in GOP strongholds. How the mighty have fallen. It wasn’t too long ago that Karl Rove was crowing about a permanent Republican majority. In the ashes of recent losses, their elderly statesmen compare the party label to dog food that people won’t buy.

Just how bad is the GOP image? Party pollster Fran Luntz tells the Weekly Standard: “It used to be that Republicans won on economic and values and foreign policy issues. Democrats won on quality of life. Now Democrats are winning on everything.”

The Democratic primaries are generating millions of new voters while a stream of defectors cause more anguish for the GOP. Not since 1932 has the party been in such trouble.

What to do? In a fit of desperation, party leaders put their battered heads together and came up with a new slogan, fittingly copied from a drug maker’s anti-depressant pill. That probably won’t do the trick.

I feel so badly for these poor folks that I have a suggestion that might help. Why don’t they play on voters’ compassion? When I see the mighty reduced to rubble this way, I think of how Casey Stengel went from the all-winning New York Yankees to manager of the deplorable New York Mets. As terrible as the expansion Mets were, fans packed the old Polo Grounds to see them play. Thanks to the way Casey presented his team to the media, the Mets won the hearts of New York and were heralded everywhere as “lovable losers”.

Pay attention, John Boehner, here’s how Casey did it:

First, you’ve got a Presidential nominee who is the oldest in our history and while Democrats will be too polite to draw voter attention to it voters are sure to notice. Shortly after Casey Stengel led the New York Yankees to five straight World Series titles, he was fired because he was believed to be too old to manage. When he came out of retirement to manage the Mets, he made light of his age: “It’s a great honor to be joining the Knickerbockers”, a New York baseball team that last played around the time of the Civil War.

After losing Denny Hastert’s seat and should-be “locks” in Louisiana and Mississippi, GOP brass put the blame on “bad” candidates. That’s not how Casey would have explained it. Here is his positive spin: “I’ve been in this game a hundred years, but I see new ways to lose I never knew existed before.” As for “bad” candidates, Casey told reporters about two of his rookies: “See that fellow over there? He’s 20 years old. In 10 years he has a chance to be a star. Now, that fellow over there, he’s 20 too. In 10 years he has a chance to be 30.”