Posted on 10/25/2006 8:12:42 PM PDT by neverdem
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
If there's one thing pundits agree on, it's that the Republican Party has more to lose in this year's midterm election. An understandable conclusion since the GOP controls everything in Washington but the weather. But it's dead wrong. It's the Democrats who are more at risk.
Look at it this way: If Democrats can't capture either the Senate or the House of Representatives in a climate this toxic for Republicans — incompetent conduct of a needless war abroad and mounting evidence of congressional corruption at home — they'll be a national laughingstock.
It won't be easy, especially capturing the Senate, where Democrats need to win at least six of the seven or eight seats rated toss-ups while retaining the seat they already hold in New Jersey that's considered up for grabs. The House, where Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats among the 40 to 45 deemed competitive, looks more doable. But no sure thing. Still, should they blow it, Democrats can expect a popular demand that they do the right thing and file for bankruptcy. Go the way of the Whigs, as it were.
Political success is measured as much by perception and expectations as by reality, maybe more. And the perception today, as measured by the polls and signs of flagging enthusiasm among some conservatives, is that President Bush's Republican Party has lost its way — it's not even very conservative anymore — and has forfeited its right to rule.
The polls everywhere outside the hard-core South are dismal for the president and discouraging for GOP candidates who can't escape his shadow. But they have created a great expectations test for Democrats in the bargain. If they can't win now, when can they ever?
Russ Hemenway of the liberal National Committee for an Effective Congress in New York has been working in national electoral politics for more than 50 years and says he has seen few years as promising for Democrats as this one — but the risk that goes with that promise is great.
The impact of another Democratic failure Nov. 7, he said, "would be a terrible psychological blow." On a more practical level, it would be disastrous for Democratic efforts to recruit attractive candidates in the years immediately ahead and for raising money, he said.
Democrats have enjoyed one of their best years in memory in the search for top-tier candidates for the Senate and House, Hemenway said. But it wasn't easy and it required an extravagant promise.
"We told them they'll be in the majority in the next Congress, that these were the best conditions for Democrats in years," Hemenway said. "We told them they will be able to get things done."
Majority-party status is particularly important in the House. With it go chairmanships of subcommittees, even for freshmen, plus patronage, influence or even control over legislation and spending and, most important, the power to hold hearings that draw the press and attract usually favorable attention back home.
Minority members of the House, on the other hand, are usually as conspicuous in the congressional legislative process as the wallpaper. Only on extremely close issues do their votes matter at all — something majorities ordinarily take care to avoid. Why give the opposition a chance to be heard?
It's not quite that bad for senators in the minority. Senators have stature and are more visible personalities in Washington as well as at home. Even in the minority, they're pampered and sought after as talking heads on television. And the more collegial, less partisan atmosphere of the Senate offers even minority members an occasional chance to be heard. But even in the Senate, members of the minority chafe at their limitations.
For Democrats, perhaps the worst fallout from failure in the November elections is that it would allow Republicans to justifiably cite the results as a vindication for the Bush record and a rejection of Democrats as a credible alternative.
"If that happens," Hemenway said, "Democrats will be out of power for at least another decade."
This is the premise of the article?
Your argument has great merit. Think of the smile on George Soros's face if the Dems win. That alone is enough to make me vote!
1. Determine the lowest, most America-hating, most hysterical common demominator, and let them threaten and pry their way into speaking for the party.
2. Make cultural icons out of the Clintons (even though they are certifiably psychotic and were the most dissolute grifters to ever plunder the Presidency and the Whitehouse.
3. Hold meetings to decide which Democrat Solons make the daily Stalinist blames and accusations of the President (and anyone who is associated with him).
4. And, along the same lines, do any and everything possible to weaken the Republican President, even if it means siding with the enemy against America
5. Then, whine like a petulant child if one's "patriotism" comes into question.
6. Expand the hate mongering into full fledged, multi-media, revenge and spite-filled rage party. Includes news, entertainment, education, and (okay, don't laugh) left-wing talk radio.
Oh, wait. That's what they did this time.
Of course, early retirements or deaths may up the number of Senators running in 2008.
If they do make it this year RINO Mcain will benefit in 2008 and we will spend the years ahead trying to replace democrats with republicans (RINO or not) rather than replace RINOs with real conservatives.
Longer. Try forever.
The Dems are dying demographically. As many as 10 blue state House seats will become red state House seats in the next congressional reapportionment following the 2010 census. The Dems are aborting, contraceiving, gay marrying, and euthanizing themselves into extinction.
At the same time, maybe that's because the GOP in Congress keeps acting like they are the minority...so I guess the case could be made we do have split government now.
THe MSM is dying too.
By 2010, the old "MSM rules" that have controlled electoral politics for decades will no longer apply.
This is perhaps the last raging gasp from the left as a majority, dictating force.
the GOP controls everything in Washington but the weather
Well, we all know that algore controls the weather but, honestly, if the GOP 'controls everything in Washington' I must have been on the wrong planet these past two years because I could have sworn there wasn't even ONE Republican in Congress!
Seriously, the DEMS already have all their Clinton-appointed judges lined up and waiting in the wings. It may take a few months, a few million $$$ and hundreds of lawyers but the Demos WILL get control of the House in the end.
Recall in the run-up to the 2004 election, Evan Thomas of Newsweek claimed that the MSM was going to be worth 15 pts to Kerry?
I believe Evan Thomas was right. Given an impartial press, His Nibs would have polled in the thirties.
The polls everywhere outside the hard-core South are dismal
Just what the hell is 'the hard-core South' exactly? Could this article be dripping with anymore contempt and disgust for conservatism?
With 12 days left to go, Rush Limbaugh detonated the mother of all IEDs on the 'RATS this week. What he did was brilliant. The liberal "media" pinheads walked right into it. Way to go Rush!
Most accurate paragraph all year.
If the Dems lose this year, if they fail to capture either house, they are a party completely adrift, and nothing can bring them back. NOTHING. Bill Clinton did not cement the party the way Reagan did. Since the sixties, TWO Democrats have been President, one a two-termer, while FOUR Republicans have been elected president (plus Ford filling out Nixon's term).
The psychological impact on younger people is staggering. The reason young people take the Greens and Libertarians and "third party" wishes seriously is because they see all of them as about on the level of the Democrats, with the Republicans as the equivalent of the only remaining superpower.
Forget 08--if the Dems can't win this year, they've had it. Hillary may win in 08, but as with her hubby, it would be a Clinton victory, not a party victory. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Hillary Presidency with a larger Republican control of both houses as insurance.
When Clinton found himself staring down the two barrels of a Republican House and Senate in '94, he knew he was in trouble. What he did in response, though, was pretty amazing: he signed everything Newt sent his way. The results were:
1. The country was in excellent shape thanks to awesome Republican policies;
2. Everything that had made it so had Clinton's signature on it;
3. The Republicans had nothing left to run on in '96. Everything they wanted to do had been done.
Clinton's temporary shift to the right got him re-elected, at which point he promptly swung back to the left, hard.
Hey, I am up for a good laugh at our comrades on the other side of the asile. Bless their hearts. LOL
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.