The GOP Is Dumbing Itself Down

When and why did Republicans start promoting stupidity and discounting intelligence?

As the GOP careens toward what is shaping up to be a massive voter rebuke on Nov. 4, that is the question that the Party of Lincoln ought to be asking itself . . . even if they are afraid of every possible answer:

Was it in 2000, when they nominated former head high school cheerleader turned frat boy George W. Bush, who proudly called himself an “average student” shortly after becoming the 43rd President of the United States . . . and then proceeded to drastically underperform “average” for eight long years that are mercifully ending?

Or was it earlier this year, when they nominated John McCain, whose class rank at the U.S. Naval Academy was 894 of 899, and who obviously could not have advanced to the U.S. Congress, much less the Senate, without his dad’s last name and his trophy wife’s beer distributorship money?

Or was it even more recently, when McCain tabbed as his running mate former Miss Alaska finalist and TV sports reporter Sarah Palin, who transferred from one undistinguished college to another four times before finally graduating with a BS degree in communications?

Or was it back in the 1990s, when they started deifying actor-turned-politician Ronald Reagan despite clear evidence that his trickle-down Reaganomics was a crock, and that his fiscal policies tripled the deficit (that we are still suffering from two decades later)?

It seems to me that all of these are milestones along the path of the GOP dumbing itself down. Republicans have gotten away with it for this long by masking candidates of mediocre intelligence with smart strategies authored by the likes of Lee Atwater and his protege, Karl Rove, who was nicknamed “Bush’s Brain” for good reason.

But it’s increasingly obvious that this era is about to end. Bush’s stunning lack of curiosity contributed heavily to eight years of living hell that the 2008 Republican nominee absolutely had to disown as soon as possible. But in this case, McCain waited until the final debate to finally declare “I am not President Bush.” He should have asserted that weeks or even months earlier . . . but he apparently wasn’t smart enough to connect the dots between Bush’s historically low approval ratings and Obama’s primary line of attack. Oops. Let’s call that McCain Mistake #1.

McCain Mistake #2 was picking Palin. After saying repeatedly that our country’s biggest threat is Islamic extremism and using “Country First” as his primary campaign slogan, he picked someone with ZERO foreign policy experience in a transparent, cynical attempt to play identity politics with Hillary supporters. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The Palin pick also defused one of Obama’s biggest weaknesses (inexperience) AND heightened concern about one of McCain’s biggest weaknesses (age).

Had McCain picked Charlie Crist, he might be winning Florida. Had McCain picked Tom Ridge, he might be tied in Pennsylvania. Had McCain picked Mitt Romney, he might still be competitive in Michigan. Had McCain picked Mike Huckabee, he might be at least tied in Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia. Instead, McCain is losing every one of those key states, in some cases by double digits.
McCain Mistake #3 was “suspending” his campaign before the first debate. First of all, he didn’t “suspend” anything except perhaps disbelief. This obvious political ploy by McCain put himself in an absolute no-win position — unless Barack Obama failed to call his bluff. But Obama, being the smart man that he is, immediately called his bluff and McCain showed up for the debate with his tail between his legs having lost the first debate before it even began. It also gave birth to the “erratic” charge that stuck to McCain and is still hurting him badly.

McCain Mistake #4 was finally giving in to the conservative talk radio extremists demanding that his campaign go negative with the William Ayres attacks. Maybe these tone deaf buffoons didn’t notice that Hillary had already tried this line of attack during the primaries, and it failed to resonate then. What possible chance did it have of resonating in the midst of an historic economic crisis? No one gives a crap about Obama’s tangential relationship with a guy who was a domestic terrorist 40 years ago when their 401Ks are circling the drain. The fact that McCain clearly used Ayres half-heartedly and reluctantly only heightened the overall sense of desperation coming from his campaign.

The GOP circular firing squad is already pulling triggers with a week and a half to go until doomsday. Instead of putting all the blame on McCain and his campaign, maybe Republicans ought to look at the bigger picture. By constantly devaluing brainpower in their candidates they are dumbing down their party, setting up their campaigns to make stupid mistakes and losing elections. As Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

- Theo Chen