Posted on 05/11/2006 5:22:49 AM PDT by veronica
Dick Morris writes a stinker today in the beltway newspaper, The Hill, in which he says:
“The only way for a Republican to survive in 2006 is to run like a Democrat. The GOP line on oil companies totally misses the fact that voters see a vast conspiracy by big oil companies to manipulate the price to feather their own nests. All talk of supply increase or demand decrease is quite beside the point for the average voter. The issue is whether or not you are part of the conspiracy to fix and raise prices.
“The Republican position on climate change — that it isn’t happening or, if it is, it’s inevitable — also completely misses the views of the average voter who sees hurricanes, droughts, tornadoes and such as the consequence of years of air pollution.”
Rubbish, Dick.
Republicans need to do exactly the opposite. They need to run as tax and budget cutters. They need to lay out a clear border policy, along the lines suggested by Newt Gingrich. They should NOT get too panicked about the polls of the day, which hint at big Dem wins in November. Rest assured: The Dems will blow their lead. They always do. And here’s why.
Jim Pinkerton says over-the-top Dem rhetoric about impeachment will rally even the most jaded Republican to turn out in November. Thomas Bray says much the same thing.
Richard Cohen, a Washington Post liberal, says the American Left is so full of hate these days that it will blow up the Democratic party as it did in 1968 [http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/digital_lynch_mob.html]. Cohen himself has felt the heat of this hate in recent weeks. He writes:
“Two weeks ago, I wrote about Al Gore's new movie on global warming. I liked the film. In response, I instantly got more than over 1,000 e-mails, most of them praising Gore, some of them calling him the usual names and some, in what passes for logic nowadays, concluding there was no such thing as global warming if only because Gore said there was. I put the messages aside for a slow day when I would answer them.
“Then I wrote about Stephen Colbert and his unfunny performance at the White House Correspondents' dinner. Kapow! Within a day, I got more than 2,000 e-mails. A day later, I got 1,000 more. By the fourth day, the number had reached 3,499 -- a figure that does not include the usual offers of nubile Russian women or loot from African dictators. The Colbert messages began with Patrick Manley (``You wouldn't know funny if it slapped you in the face'') and ended with Ron (``Colbert ROCKS, you MURDER'') who was so proud of his thought that he copied countless others. Ron, you're a genius.
“Truth to tell, I peeked into only a few of the e-mails. I did this because I would sometimes recognize a name I thought I knew, which was almost always a mistake. When I guilelessly clicked on the name, I would get a bucket of raw, untreated and disease-laden sewage right in the face. I'd quickly delete the thing, like closing a manhole cover, and move on, trying to figure out how to peek into an e-mail without getting the full, ugly message. No way.
“The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred. This spells trouble -- not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out Hillary!) I have seen this anger before -- back in the Vietnam War era. That's when the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.
“The hatred is back. I know it's only words now appearing on my computer screen, but the words are so angry, so roiled with rage, that they are the functional equivalent of rocks once so furiously hurled during anti-war demonstrations.”
The hate that animates the American Left today is a sad thing … so different than the search for common good, quality and social justice which used to animate progressive politics, says Brad Carson, a former Democratic Congressman from Oklahoma. He’s right. That’s why I don’t lose too much sleep worrying about Speaker Pelosi.
I other words run as something that they are not and hope that the voters are too stupid to ask, "What budget cuts?"
Kalgaard is right. Not only will the Dems not win, but by the time we get to the elections, they will be making excuses to why they LOST GROUND in both the House and Senate, 1-5 in the House, 1-2 in the Senate.
Dick Morris has only proven himself able to get Democrats elected.
Tax cutters, yes; budget cutters...well, everyone favors cutting someone ELSE's spending, but expect THEIR representative to "bring home the bacon."
Dick Morris has only proven himself able to get lying, conniving, traitorous, only able to muster slightly more than 40% of the vote because Ross Perot split the conservative vote Democrats elected.
Dick Morris is a very smart man. But he's not always right.
They wont win because they are gay.
They are tax cutters, and the point was they should also run as budget cutters. Easy enough to comprehend, right?
Morris has no principles, and thinks Americans respect that of politicians.
He's a cancer from the Clinton era. IMO
Morris's predictions thus far have been almost all wrong. His analysis of current conditions is sometimes useful though usually derivative but his predictions should be occasions for large bets to be placed on opposite results.
"The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred. This spells trouble -- not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out Hillary!) I have seen this anger before -- back in the Vietnam War era. That's when the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.
“The hatred is back. I know it's only words now appearing on my computer screen, but the words are so angry, so roiled with rage, that they are the functional equivalent of rocks once so furiously hurled during anti-war demonstrations.”"
I completely agree with these statements. Now it is clear to me why Ken Mehlman called Hillary an "angry" person several months ago. Melhman's and Rove's strategy for 06' will be to define the dems as angry, vengeful, untrustworthy, hysterically out of control liberals whose primary agenda is to impeach Bush. Think of the miles and miles of video footage of: John Conyers, Charlie Rangel, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, Dick Burbin, Jay Rockefeller, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer et. al. screaming hysterically against anything Bush supports. The dems' anger will be their downfall.
Much more important is the price of gas BUT today's average voter is more savvy about the economy, is more likely to be an investor, and it simply cannot be repeated enough times: 9/11.
The Dems are running on what--70's retread impeachment and Big Oil and environmentalist reruns?
There is an open field for the Republicans to grab onto and run with the themes of security, borders and making the Bush (some here forget that part) tax cuts, and even using the CIA nominee and judicial appointments. They have a constituency waiting to support them. They can, and I believe will, run on these issues and forget the Democrat/MSM distractions which have never and will never win elections.
It doesn't help that Rush, other prominent conservatives and financial gurus mock oil industry resentment and pretend that there is truly a free market in oil.
There is no bogey man, no man behind the curtain as Rush pretends to ask with arrogant sarcasm. The blame lies with the lack of new refineries, no new drilling, boutique fuels, consolidation of oil companies and their vertical integration in the market have combined to create an atmosphere where a hiccup in the middle east causes the price of oil to shoot up, or a refinery fire or a named hurricaine forms and causes gasoline to skyrocket.
Either oil companies have all the luck to have all these factors lined up in their favor, or they've worked very hard behind the scene to arrange it this way.
If the GOP manages to come to it's senses, it is still possible for them to win and perhaps even expand their congressional majorities in November.
A good start would be for SML Bill Frist to take Bill O'Reilly's advice from last night and urge the sending of the National Guard to the southern border to stop the flood of illegals pouring into the U.S. day and night.
The Bush tax cuts have been extended in the House and the Senate is expected to follow suit. That is good news for the economy (which is roaring) and it is good news for the GOP.
If President Bush is able to pull the protective wrapping off that veto pen, and USE it on this upcoming monstrosity of a pork-infested budget bill, and send it back to the Senate while telling Senator Robert Kleagle Byrd of West Virginia to spend more time with Mrs. Byrd, that will go a long way to turning around the image of GOP becoming the Party of big spending (not too much, but anything helps!).
And there is the wild card between now and the end of October: if that Iranian nutbar Ahmadjihad steps over the line and does something utterly stupid which demands a U.S. military response, I do believe that under those circumstances, President Bush will drop the big hammer on Iran, the U.N. be damned. And while I do NOT believe that he would make such a decision based on any political calculations (as did Clinton and the African aspirin factories), the political benefits will all but wash the 'Rats out to sea with little hope of staying afloat so far as the November elections are concerned.
Factor in the 'Rats tendency to self-destruct and there is no reason to give up hope for the GOP in November.
Yet.
The problem is, they have been running as budget cutters. Voters can only be fooled so many times before they wise up. Republicans need to start putting up, or voters will stop showing up.
Voters will demand "cut that other guy's budget," followed by "but you'd better bring home the bacon to this district, buster."
So if the voters are ignorant and ill-informed and economic illiterates, the solution is to pander to their fears and demagogically demonize business rather than educate them?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.