The Campaign Never Ends

Don't look now, but the Bush White House is going wobbly on Social Security private accounts:

"We're not going to get into ruling anything in or out," presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said as Bush traveled here for a Social Security speech.

McClellan was asked about comments by the president's chief economic adviser that Bush was willing to consider the creation of individual investment accounts as an "add-on" to the Social Security system, as Democrats prefer, rather than financing them with a portion of Social Security payroll taxes, as Bush has been advocating.

"We're certainly willing to discuss it," said Allan Hubbard, head of the National Economic Council, who spoke at a breakfast meeting with reporters and was quoted by USA Today.

Matt Margolis at Blogs for Bush sounded surprised:

So let me get this straight... The Democrats—the minority party in both the House and Senate—say they will not discuss fixing Social Security (which everyone knows needs to be fixed) unless personal accounts are off the table, and we're yielding to them? Where is the backbone of our party? Where is the muscle of the White House?

We shouldn't be surprised.

Remember the No Child Left Behind Act? That was supposed to have educational vouchers as its centerpiece. The Democrats balked, and Bush let Ted Kennedy strip them out of the bill completely. Remember the prescription drug bill? That boondoggle was supposed to have Medical Savings Accounts as the sweetener to get conservatives to go along with it. The Democrats balked, and Bush not only let MSAs be almost completely gutted from the bill, but then twisted GOP arms past the breaking point to ram (barely) the measure through the House.

And now we come to Social Security, where the only true reform is private accounts as an alternative to the failed, untenable government system. It should be absolutely non-negotiable, not "on the table" with everything else. The Democrats are balking? Fine - make them filibuster it, then. Let them go against the wishes of 60% of the American public. And then crucify them for it.

But that isn't what the President is doing. He's slowly, but surely, retreating. And the end result will be a bill with some combination of tax hikes and benefit cuts with no personal accounts that the Dems will promptly hang around the necks of every single Pachyderm in D.C., just like they did to Bush41 with the 1990 tax increase.

2006 and 2008 will be bloodbaths. And that doesn't even begin to figure in the fallout from an el foldo on the anti-judge filibuster.

The Brits have a saying: "Too clever by half." Every time I see a post or a comment seeking to paper over the anxieties running rampant on the Right at the moment, the argument boils down to one for "finesse." The problem is the Democrats aren't playing finesse, they're playing smashmouth, and they're whipping our asses.

But it's nothing new. It seems we 'Pubbies will never learn. We cling to this stubbornly archaic notion that campaigning is for two or three months every couple of years, and the rest of the time is for governing. For the Democrats, however, THE CAMPAIGN NEVER ENDS. We thought we'd won on November 2nd, and we stopped campaigning. The Democrats, convinced that they CAN'T lose legitimately, kept right on going. And while we laughed at them and shook our heads incredulously at the stunts they've pulled over the past few months and predicted our inevitable triumph on our core platform issues, they kept right on agitating and demogoguing, in full belief that they would wear down the majority, break its spirit, and bend it to their will.

And you know what? That's exactly what's happening.

Without the White House, thirty seats down in the House and ten down in the Senate, the Democrat Party still runs the country.

Unless we can figure out a way to clone Tom DeLay, I'm afraid we're screwed.