Aug.15, 2006
 
Editorial: Backed Into a Corner, Republicans Can Still Win
 
If one listens to the national polls being taken or reads the latest news on the Internet, the only prediction one could have for this November's elections is that it is going to be a bad year for Republicans. The war in Iraq has been under greater scrutiny this year than ever before, the Middle East seems to be exploding, and gas prices are the highest they've ever been.
 
To top it all off, history has almost always been against the President's party halfway into the Chief Executive's second term in office. So Year Six of the George W. Bush Presidency was likely to always be tough on the Republican Congress.
 
However, smart Republican candidates know that they have one ace in the hole, an ace that has frankly helped them many times before in recent elections. The ace?
 
The ace is the maturity of the American voting public, a majority of whom know that it is not enough to merely criticize the party in power--no, the other team, in this case the Democrats, need to have a real plan of their own to help the country.
 
As former Republican Congressman Jack Kemp of Buffalo reminded his own party, "It's not enough to have an anti-thesis; you have to have a thesis, too."
 
The Democrats, to date, have not seemed to come up with a coherent thesis for foreign policy. All they have are complaints. And when all one has are complaints, it strikes the American public as just so much politicking and preening for the TV cameras.
 
The American voting public has a right to demand more from both parties this November. The party that appears to have the best approach to these thorny foreign and domestic issues will be rewarded, as they always are, by the voters.
 
May the better party win.