Meghann McCain wrote an article today on The Daily Beast entitled, “What I Learned from the Democrats” wherein she detailed what lessons can be learned from the party of donkey by the party of elephant in their pursuit to find a clearer path in the party.

First, I think Meghann is one of the clearest, cleanest voices in the GOP today.   There is a lot of ‘noise’ in the party line and it’s nice to hear someone coming up with sensible, cautioned opinions about what’s going on and more importantly, what to do about it, which does not seem to be a point on any Republican powerpoint presentation today.

I do debate the idea that the Republicans are showing party unity right now.   They may have shown unity during the Bush years, mostly by not saying anything against what Bush was doing with his policies, but nowadays there is an awful lot of side and back-talk and odd folks struggling for recognition and voices in the GOP dogpile — Palin, Steele, Jindal, etc.   Nobody is a clear, solid leader and they’re not all talking the same game.   Add to that the Republican legislators who have chosen the path of, “NO”, despite efforts to bi-partisanship by the president, and you’ve got a party locked in a struggle with itself.    At the moment, the Democrats only have to sit back and watch (if they know what’s smart) and wait until the GOP finds a real leader that unifies the party message before having to fight it.   Right now, Republicans are doing all the work in hurting themselves.

Did supporting the surge really benefit the GOP?   I don’t think so….after all, supporting the war efforts simply made it that much easier for Democrats to gain ground in the election due to the animosity it produced; the polls clearly showed that the war efforts contributed greatly to the decision to flip the leadership of this country around.

The quote from Senator Reid was improperly cited out of context.    The original article from The Hill.com quotes Reid as such:

Reid stated, “I don’t believe in the executive power trumping everything… I believe in our Constitution, three separate but equal branches of government.”

“If Obama steps over the bounds, I will tell him. … I do not work for Barack Obama. I work with him,” he said.

Meghan is VERY correct when she says the extreme-left liberals are making Obama’s efforts at a centric position extremely difficult.   I’ve never like Pelosi and Reed has struck me again and again as a mosquito to be slapped, and I do think they tend to get in the way.   That being said, what is up with the GOP refusing to give any ground on any of the major votes and instead be whipped into saying a universal negative to every major thing that comes up?   Stimulus?  NO.   Budget?  NO.   Bi-partisanship?  NO.

I think a lot of the Left (minus the few out for their party and nobody else) are trying to make a middle ground that’s happy to everyone, but how can that be encouraged when there’s no response?   At this point, I’m more likely to say, “Screw it — we tried, you didn’t budge, so now we won’t even try and you can just suffer the consequences.”   Remember that at least in the House, Democrats don’t even have to try to get GOP votes, and in the Senate, it’s fairly easy to get around the filibuster if need be.    Republicans would do well to put down their sabres and meet us in the middle of the field on occasion.

All this being said, I do agree with Meghan’s call for centrism on the part of moving forward, both for Democrats and the GOP.    This is generally how government is designed to work anyway, and is why we have the system of checks-and-balances in place to prevent the extremes from existing.    Both parties would do well to remember this as they move forward;  big changes are possible without becoming extremist, and that’s the hard balance to find and maintain.