Posted on 05/07/2006 2:27:02 PM PDT by WaterDragon
The Republican Party is uneasy as it shambles toward the crucial 2006 congressional elections. Many of its supporters claim to feel demoralized, if not seduced and abandoned, by the conservative president they thought they elected in 2004. With President Bush's Nixonian economic policies and unwillingness to curtail federal spending, and the Republican faithful as confused as everyone else about the Iraq War, this is a good time to gain some political perspective from two veteran architects of the Reagan Revolution.
In the midst of another difficult political predicament, Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, once said he had finally found two experts who clearly understood the problem. Unfortunately, they disagreed with one another on the solution. So do Bruce Bartlett and Kevin Phillips. But with the GOP political-direction-finder whirling like a compass needle in a magnetic storm, perhaps they can at least help illustrate its different aspects.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
I am not near as unhappy with George Bush as I am with Reublican Congressmen and Senators.
The republican lawmakers are supposed to be sending up laws to the white House and getting our people placed in positions of power. Instead they spend their days crawfishing. They have taken a republican win and through hard work turned it into a loss.
I'm leaning on voting for a 3rd party candidate too. Maybe it's the times we live in, or maybe all politicians have always been liars and self-serving buffoons. But after having voted for Bush in both elections, I've (finally) learned my lession, the Republican Party is only a baby step ahead of the Rat party in terms of honesty, ability, and in taking seriously their campaign promises. Essentially, the parties are identical to one another.
As for me, I discovered who Bush was the day after Terri Schaivo was starved to death, and he made the most startlingly contradictory and paradoxical statement I've ever heard in my life. He said in his speech to the nation: "it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak". Imagine, the most powerful man on earth had the gaul to make that statement after publicly proclaiming several days earlier that he has no power to help Terri. Lying and cowardice are not unique to Democrats.
The President's stand on the illegal-immigration issue is simply amazing to me. He's doing for Mexico what General Santa Ana could only dream of doing.
Yup it's all or nothing for some types.
We are going to lose the Congress in 2006. People are getting hit hard at the gas pump; I paid $3.13 a gallon today. The price gets higher every week. Despite the generally good economy, this is what people are going to vote about in November. Our do-nothing, spineless GOP Congress wont pass a bill to drill in ANWR, preferring to keep paying the Arabs to fund the war against us. The President's response was Jimmy Carter-like: " I cant do anything."
We should have declared victory in Iraq and left by now. We deposed the dictator and beat the snot out of Al Qaeda. Mission accomplished. Time to come home. Instead, we are bogged down with no end in sight, and the voters dont like that either.
We are handing the democrats the Congress on a plate. We are going to hand Hitlery the keys to the White House in 2008 as well, if we dont snap out of it. Does Bush really want to preside over a GOP collapse and a democrat resurgence led by Hillary Clinton?
The stupids are out in force today.
If you want amnesty elect pelosi.
Gop passed a tough bill in the house. Gop in the house will stop amnesty.
Take out the hurricanes and the war we have a great surplus.
I don't want reid as majority leader when stevens steps down
A vote for the constitution party is a vote to make nancy pelosi commander and cheif.
The dems will impeach bush and cheney.
His administration's incompetence, refusal to spend responsibly, constant failure to communicate, numerous examples of corruption, and preference for big government has demonized the Republican Party so badly that it will take decades for the party to recover.
It's not all his fault- the Senate has some pathetic Republican leaders and so does the House- but Bush is the leader, and he has failed to lead responsibly.
I was once fully in support of this President. After the past year and a half, I'm no longer going to blindly back him. You know there is a problem when Democrats everywhere try to immediately link their GOP opponents to George Bush. He has rapidly becoming a cancer to the party.
Bye-bye.
In 2000 GWB took 49.7% of the vote, and in 2004 GWB took 52.9% of the vote. So, to begin with, with the current political landscape, it's very unlikely that the GOP will match even GWB's 2000 numbers in an open seat, and his 2000 number in AZ-08 was less than 50%.
Otherwise, the likely Democrat nominee Gabrielle Giffords has raised $570,230; the highest Republican fundraiser is Steve Huffman at $239,659 and he's actually the underdog. Randy Graf is considered the leading GOP contender and he's raised $130,812. It is very unlikely that a Pubby is gonna beat a Dem in the AZ-08 district in this year's political landscape while outspent 2 to 1, much less when outspent nearly 5 to 1.
And the outgoing GOP congressman does not support the more likely GOP nominee, but rather says that he's too conservative for the district. And whatever the case may be, whichever Republican ends up winning the nomination will likely end up with much less cash on hand than Giffords, who will have a much easier nomination battle.
""The price gets higher every week"'
theyve actually been falling for the past two weeks
"Our do-nothing, spineless GOP Congress wont pass a bill to drill in ANWR, preferring to keep paying the Arabs to fund the war against us."'
Actually I think 95% of the GOP memebers voted for ANWR, there arent 60 votes for ANWR, youll appreciate the filibuster one day in the near future.
"We should have declared victory in Iraq and left by now"
Simply declaring victory doesnt make it so, Al Qaeda isnt that stupid. A pull out = loss and we would also soon lose in Afghanistan as well if we pulled out of Iraq.
No one I know has taken Kevin Phillips seriously in 20 years.
LOL! Thanks for the laugh!
He can blame Bush for one very good reason:
Bush Derangement Syndrome.
You're probably right, which is why Kirk is in the Watch List and I'm rather skeptical he'll move up the list. However, the district is Dem-leaning (GWB took 46.9% in 2000 and 47.2% in 2004) and his opponent his year has actually raised a competitive amount of $374,159 (Kirk has raised $1,635,450). While it's difficult for me to imagine Kirk becoming seriously at risk, that's enough to get on the Watch List for the time-being.
Keep in mind that the Watch List is exactly that: Seats that are basically Safe right now, but are worth watching.
I don't see any democratic incuments on the house or senate side losing. There is not an anti incumbent mood there is an anti gop mood. Thank the media in large part for that. If the media reported that the dems are blocking a bill to go after sexual predators just so bush doesn't look good the dems would be in far less favor with the public.
I don't see any seats that are democrat right now on either side switching from dems and that includes the dems that are retiring.
This shows that the country has moved far left. After 9/11 the country voted for the gop. With 9/11 in the distant past this country is going back to the days they gave clinton a double digit win in 96.
Bean and marshall will both win easy victories. I've seen polls with marshall up by 35 percent. Edwards and strickland's open seat will go heavily for the dems. I have seen a poll with Melancon up by 40 percent. Not only will dems not lose any seat they have now I don't see a competive race in any of the seats. This will be the first time in history that the a party doesn't lose a seat.
These predictions of the house being up in the air are wrong.
This is going to be a landslide reid and pelosi win. The media will be tripping over themselves praising dean. Gop has 232 seats in the house they will wind up with less than 200. It will be a massacre.
When 31 percent of conservatives want pelosi as speaker the election is as ugly as it can get. Dems are consistently 15 points up in matchups. That is unheard of and can't be dismissed with typical polls.
Another prediction is reps like tancredo will be caught up in the anti gop wave and be voted out of office.
Gop is in an impossible position. Dems filibuster and then blame the gop saying they are the party in power and nothing is getting done.
I was going to mention that Bruce Bartlett and Kevin Phillips aren't exactly GOP stalwarts. Let them both have their schadenfreude moment for now, because the Dem Presidential ticket in 2008 will be a real nightmare for them.
The outgoing GOP congressman has become more left after declaring his orientation in 1996. Who cares who he supports?
Randy has a LOT of grassroots support, and once the primary is over, the money will come in, because the RNC does NOT want to lose the seat.
Giffords is a weak candidate; has no solutions. Randy ran a good primary campaign against the fag in 2002, and got 43 % of the vote, even though he was outspent 5:1.
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