A Fistful of Meh

In 1994 Republicans swept into control of the House and Senate. They held onto this power for over a decade. Yet somehow with all of the momentum in the world they completely and totally muffed the 1996 Presidential election. Part of that was a brilliant populist move by Clinton to actually push popular portions of conservatism. Part of that was Bob Dole, the guy whose face is in the dictionary next to the word "meh."

If Republicans think they'll ride anti-Obama sentiment into an easy 2012 Presidential election win, they're sadly mistaken. I saw the Republican debate on Fox a few nights ago. Most of those guys could give Dole a run for the money in the meh category. As far as I'm concerned my primary vote is Ron Paul's to lose. He's ideologically consistent and the places where I disagree with him most are on issues I think he has no shot at actually implementing. But even he didn't bowl me over.

It looks like I'm not alone in the underwhelmed department. But what interests me more than the apathy is what exactly Republican voters are looking for. It seems if you ask 10 of them, you'll get 12 different answers. The only thing I can gather from this is that we don't know exactly what we want but we know this isn't it. That's not a good environment for a Party to have going into the Presidential elections.