Finally, Something for Republicans to be Excited About

Thus far, 2008 has proven to be a long and difficult election cycle for Republicans.  Despite the fact that the Democrat-controlled Congress possesses incredibly low approval ratings (the latest RCP average has it at 19.3%), the bad news seems to continue to stack up against us.  Pessimism toward the economy continues to grow; prices at the pump are out of control; President Bush suffers from abysmal job approval ratings; every indication is that we are going to lose more seats in both the House and Senate; and the man who is at the top of our ticket, John McCain, is not garnering much enthusiasm.  And to make matters worse, we cannot forget about the recent indictment against Senator Ted Stevens.

These are only a few of the many reasons that Republican morale this cycle is extremely low – because, quite frankly, there have been few things to fuel any sort of optimism. Until now.

The bold move by a number of House Republicans yesterday to protest the Democrats' failure to pass a comprehensive energy plan provides a glimmer of hope.  Activists on the Right are buzzing all over the place about it.  According to Twitag, #dontgo is one of the top tags for the entire week on Twitter.  Conservative blogs across the country caught wind of the story, and even the mainstream media covered it.  And it sure seems to have an impact on at least one Democrat, as Barack Obama now says he is willing to consider drilling offshore.

This is a winning issue for our side.  Voters want relief at the pumps, and they want it now.  If voters understand that Republicans are ready to take decisive action to drive down the cost of gas but that Democrats have blatantly obstructed any action, we're going to find a lot of swing voters pulling the lever for us in November.

What happened yesterday on the floor of the House isn't going to completely change the outcome of this election.  But for once, at least there is something for the Right to get truly excited about.  And that's certainly one step in the "Right" direction.

Aaron Marks is a founding partner of Three Group, LLC, a Pittsburgh-based new media firm that focuses on providing technology-based solutions for Republican candidates and organizations, and in particular has built Web 2.0 campaign management software called Mission Control.  Aaron also worked in new media and voter outreach on Senator Rick Santorum's 2006 re-election campaign.