Digg

del-icio-us

technorati

Facebook

Yahoo!

Republican party strategist Frank Luntz said today that despite the election of Barack Obama, America is still “safe from liberalism.”

“Safe from liberalism?” chuckled a Democratic party strategist who wished to remain anonymous. “That’s absurd; we won the election!”

But Luntz insisted. “Sure, the Democrats now have more power. That’s a fact. But what can they really achieve in the next four years? Our gains are now permanent, or nearly,” he said, referring to disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s declaration that “the job of all revolutions is to make their gains permanent.”

Luntz noted that the trillion dollars of bailout spending was only the latest example of how the GOP has made the implementation of future progressive measures extremely difficult.

“Bill Clinton entered office with all kinds of ideas about national health care and so on. But then he had to face the reality that we had made it impossible. He then got on with our program, and that’s when we saw cuts to welfare and a loosening of environmental regulations. The same thing will happen this time around, you’ll see,” said Luntz, before adding, with a chuckle, “unless by some miracle the left can get organized.”

When asked whether two consecutive Obama terms would make a difference, Luntz croaked with disdain, “He’d need about five terms to unravel the advances we’ve made. Maybe more.”

What if the left were able to build a popular movement demanding progressive change? “That’s the wild card we’ve got to deal with. If the public pressure is there, it’s true, liberal change might be achieved. But I’m not banking on it.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while agreeing with Luntz on the obstacles to progressive change, offered a more hopeful take on the future. “I’d ask you to remember John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech. After urging us to strive together to create world peace, and to eradicate disease and poverty, Kennedy concluded his speech: ‘All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.’ Now that’s a program.”

“I do believe,” Pelosi continued, “that we have what it takes to succeed in restoring a humane and ecological way of life within our lifetime. And while we may not not see this realized within Obama’s term as president, nor even within two terms, I do believe that given a couple of decades of committed struggle, we can and will repair the damage that previous administrations have done to our country.”

“So,” she said with a smile, “let us begin.”