When a baseball player has come to bat after failing to get a hit twenty times in a row, some fans say he is “due” for a hit. But statisticians say he is no more likely to get a hit in this at bat than at any other time. In other words, there is no such thing as being “due.”

After the Republicans went from being the dominant party, at both the state and national levels, just a few years ago, and got clobbered at the polls by the Democrats two elections in a row, some people think the Republicans are “due” to make a comeback in this fall’s elections.

Maybe it will happen. The polls show that the voting public is getting more and more fed up with the Obama administration and with both houses of Congress that are dominated by Democrats. But, when election day comes, nobody can vote for polls. It still takes a candidate to beat a candidate — and the question is whether the Republicans come up with the kinds of candidates that can win. Those of us who are not Republicans nevertheless have a huge stake in this fall’s elections, because the current administration in Washington is not merely deficient but dangerous, both at home and abroad.

In just one year in power, the Obama administration has not merely tripled the deficit and circumvented the Constitution with their “czars” who rule by decree, but have moved to dictate the medical treatment of all Americans — which is to say, they are moving toward getting the power of life and death, to add to all the other powers they have seized.

Increasing numbers of Americans are saying that they are having trouble recognizing the country in which they were born and grew up. They will have even more trouble recognizing America if the Washington juggernaut does not lose a substantial part of its power in this year’s election.

The dangers are not only in domestic policy but even more so in the Obama administration’s foreign policy. Their diddling around while fanatical leaders of a terrorist-sponsoring nation like Iran are moving toward producing nuclear bombs can take us and the world to a point of no return.

No nation on earth will let three of its cities be annihilated by nuclear bombs without surrendering. The fact that the United States has never surrendered may make it difficult for Americans even to imagine that it could happen, much less what a horror it would be to live under hate-filled fanatics like the current Iranian leaders. But Japan had likewise never surrendered in its entire history until it was hit with two nuclear bombs.

Unlike us, Iranian leaders — going back to the Ayatollah Khomeini — have said plainly that they are willing to see their country destroyed as the price of destroying the enemies of Islam — which, in their view of the world, includes the United States.

Perhaps serious sanctions might have been enough to stop the Iranian nuclear program a few years ago, by crippling their economy. But nobody in the West had the stomach for that.

The longer we wait, the higher the price goes — the price of either action or inaction.

Just three years ago, the people currently at the top in Washington — including President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — were ready to turn tail and run in Iraq.

Former Ambassador John Bolton has written a book titled “Surrender is Not an Option.” But that is an option for the kind of people at the top in the Obama administration.

It would take a leader with extraordinary courage, pride in America and dedication to the values, traditions and the people of America, to stand up to enemies who could annihilate Los Angeles, Chicago and New York with nuclear weapons.

Does this sound anything like the president who has gone around the world apologizing for this country and literally bowing to foreign leaders?

The stakes in this fall’s elections go far beyond the fate of either the Republican party or the Democratic party. The fate of America is on the line. The Republicans need to understand that — and to understand that they are not simply “due” because of polls.

They have a job to do, and what will happen to our children and grandchildren will depend on how well they do it.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305.