Posted on 11/09/2006 7:51:01 AM PST by SirLinksalot
I'm happy to accept that if we see the data. If that's the case, then it actually means the Rove turnout model wasn't flawed, but that the GOP failed to appeal to the independents. And that's a bad sign, because it means, unlike 2004 and 2002, we don't control our own destiny.
Sounds good, except we didn't lose many seats in the south. Taylor (NC) and Shaw and Negron (which was a slam-dunk win until it got "Foleyized." So I don't really detect a Dem wave of new voters, esp. in the South. The exception, however, appears to be VA, where Dem turnout DID exceed GOP turnout, or at least equal it.
All I can say is that even though you and I have disagreed on things in the past. I feel horrible for you right now. Your posts are honestly bumming me out. If I recall correctly, you're not particularly religious, but I'm going to say a prayer otr two for you anyway. Hang in there and get ready for the next fight.
At least one of you got it RIGHT!
LOL!
Isn't Young the clown who did the "bridge to Nowhere"? In the lame-duck session, I think Hastert, on his way out the door, should take care to have Young freshly paved-over underneath the House parking lot. He deserves it.
Sorry, I know Don Young. He has been one of the more conservative Rs all along, and trying to get some of Alaska's money back into the state so this place can be developed is a b^&ch.
Graf was the guy Stephanopoulos said on ABC last night was nominated because the libs put together a crossover vote to ensure he was nominated, just so they could beat him in the fall to make a point. Georgie looked like he was playing with himself -- he was glowing like a jack-o'lantern -- while he regaled us with this one. One of the Great American Stories about the good guys slapping down a racist, and blah, blah, blah. Cue the "Profiles in Courage" theme.
What I'd like to know is, besides Mehlman, just what percentage of the RNC is actually gay? Kinda cripples-up the old family-values message to have gays popping out of the woodwork at awkward moments, which was what Foley was all about.
What do you think of this?
Look at the article Christopher Caldwell of the Weekly Standard wrote in the June, 1998 Atlantic Monthly, calling for the GOP to kick the Southerners to the curb -- too uncouth, bunch of goobers, hanging curve balls. Get us into trouble with the battleground voters, let the Dims break into the "Finkelstein Box" of "Red True-Blue Republican States".
The payoff line from that article, which I have at hand:
The Republicans are too conservative: their deference to their southern base is persuading much of the country that their vision is a sour and crabbed one. But they're too liberal, too, as their all-out retreat from shrinking the government indicates. At the same time, the Republicans have passed none of the reforms that ingratiated the party with the "radical middle." The Republicans' biggest problem is not their ideology but their lack of one. Stigmatized as rightists, behaving like leftists, and ultimately standing for nothing, they're in the worst of all possible worlds.....The Republican Party is an obsolescent one.
I liked this line from the article, too, in which Caldwell may be showing his hand: "Reaganomics helped to create a mass upper-middle class, a national culture of childless yuppies who want gay rights, bike trails, and smoke-free restaurants."
The Yacht Club, acting on the themes Caldwell identified, but principally his "de-gooberization" plea, has been laboring like Hercules for 10 years, to nullify the effect of the '94 "revolution," which brought lots of Southerners into the congressional GOP. They have eased Southerners out of positions of influence and power and replaced them with members from elsewhere -- anywhere else. The House leadership now has few Southerners in it. They gave the Republican congressional campaign to a New Yorker to run. A guy who looked at what Rahm Emanuel was up to and said "well, I like our chances" anyway.
Splat.
The current Republican leadership (use the term very loosely) are not capable of learning. Their arrogance prevents them. They thought they were ordained to rule, so they did not have to have leadership, an agenda, goals, direction, or respond to the Democrats attacks. They let the Democrats, set the tone, agenda and the debate.
1) Blackwell got creamed solely because of Taft. I think no matter how good a guy he was, or even if he offered better ideas (and many of them just never got out), he had no chance because Taft raised taxes, was involved in scandal, and was viewed as a job killer. Ken did not run, really, against Taft, and maybe that's the only way he could have won. Note that most of our state officers got killed, too---commissioners, etc. Betty Montgomery won, but she had an office that fit her, and good GOP support. A couple of well-entrenched OSC judges won.
2) A second election was the national senate election. Here, while you are right that we have to see how the data turns out, I'll bet DeWine lost a lot of R votes. We know for sure the Rs turned out in record numbers---I don't yet know the turnout for the Ds. But I think DeWine got both the anti-Bush leftist vote and the hard-core conservative backlash for ANWR and his "gang of 14." While many stated they held their noses and voted for him, I'm wondering if many didn't.
3) The Congressional seats. In retrospect, this is surprising. The "conventional wisdom" was that if CT, NY, and IN Republicans fell, the Ohio delegation would be wiped out. But Chabot, Boehner, Hobson, Turner, Schmidt all won (I think Pryce won too). Most of these people were right on amnesty, right on ANWR, right on the war, etc.
Just a consideration.
You said:
Oh, I think you are right about the election. The only thing that had me vote for the Republicans this time around, was the alternative. I guess I should have been more clear, I was wondering about your take on what he had to say about Rumsfeld.
Progress reports are given, the media simply does not cover them. Make no mistake, the media won this election for the democrats and themselves. The WAPO has admitted that their coverage of Allen was "immensively negative and not balanced". CNN airs terrorist propaganda and calls it news. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC lies to the public on a regular basis. They intentionally hide the good and only report the bad. They are in bed with the terrorists. The terrorists and the democrats say exactly the same thing, but the media doesn't report that. The second in command in the democrat led senate stood on the senate floor and called our troops Nazi's, and this is what we get for leadership. Durbin's words were burried by the media. Tony is helping a lot, but the rest of the republican crew needs to take a lesson from Mrs. Cheney and start challenging the media. Republicans need to grow a spine and challenge the democrat lies and their media allies. Until that is done our message will never get out. The media spikes the good news and by doing so they help the terrorists, and they could care less == they have achieved their goal this time and that was to get the liberal democrats back in charge.
"Most Americans intuitively understand that our survival depends on maintaining our dominant position in the world and that to do so we have to answer all challengers and leave no serious enemy standing."
I don't really think they do.
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