Posted on 11/08/2002 3:06:20 PM PST by Jean S
It was a stunning, record-breaking night. George Bush is the first President in 68 years to gain seats in his first midterm election. Historically, the party in the White House loses seats in the midterm election. This is true even in wartime: Franklin D. Roosevelt lost 50 House seats and eight Senate seats 10 months after Pearl Harbor.
Though Democrats gleefully cite the midterm election of 1998 when the Democrats picked up six House seats—and no Senate seats—that was Clinton’s second midterm election. Republicans had already realized all their midterm gains in Clinton’s first midterm election. In the very first election after people got a look at Clinton in 1994, Republicans picked up 52 seats in the House, eight seats in the Senate, 11 governorships and 12 state legislative chambers. Not a single Republican incumbent lost.
Thanks to Clinton, the ’94 Republican sweep marked the first time in half a century that Republicans had a majority in the House. (It was one of many historic moments in the Clinton Administration—another being "First President accused of rape within weeks of being impeached.") That sweep meant voters in about 50 congressional districts had done something they had never done before in their entire lives: Vote Republican in a congressional election. There was no reason to expect lifelong Democrats in those districts to keep voting Republican in every successive election.
To the contrary, Democrats should have won back a lot of the seats they lost in 1994. By the standard of historical averages, in the 1998 midterm election, the Democrats should have won back 22 House seats. Instead they won only six seats. The average midterm loss this past century is 30 seats in the House. Clinton’s average was 46.
The media billed the Democrats’ paltry gain in 1998 as a victory for Clinton and revulsion with impeachment for the same reason they say Bush "stole" the presidential election. Liberals love to lie. (Someone should write a book about that.)
By contrast, in Bush’s first midterm election last week, Republicans made spectacular gains all over the country. It was such a blowout that over on CBS, Dan Rather had to keep retelling viewers about Sen. Lautenberg’s victory in New Jersey. (Good thing Election Day finally came without another Democrat realizing the voters were on to him, or the Democrats might have had to unwrap Tutankhamen.)
All night, victories rolled in for Republicans, even shocking victories no one had expected. They picked up seats in the House and Senate. Republicans won a double whammy with Democrat-target Jeb Bush winning in Florida and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend losing in Maryland. Democratic bête noire Katherine Harris won her congressional election. In stunning upsets, Republicans won the governorships in Hawaii and Georgia. The Republican juggernaut could not be stopped.
Democrats may be forced to shut down operations as a party and re-enter politics under a different name. The party formerly known as "the Democratic Party" will henceforth be doing business under the name "the Abortion Party."
That would have the virtue of honesty. Love of abortion is the one irreducible minimum of the Democratic Party. Liberals don’t want to go to war with Saddam Hussein, but they do want to go to war to protect Roe v. Wade.
Inasmuch as George Bush rather than Barbra Streisand will be picking our federal judges, even now liberals are sharpening their character assassination techniques. People for the American Way—representing Americans up and down the Malibu beachfront—are already lining up lying Anita Hills to accuse Bush’s judicial nominees of lynching blacks and burning crosses.
This is precisely the sort of Clintonian viciousness that Americans indicated they were sick of on election night. The Democrats’ motorcycle rally-cum-funeral in Minnesota for Paul Wellstone exposed the party’s character in a pellucid, dramatic way. It was so revolting, people couldn’t avert their eyes from the spectacle. The only moral compass liberals have is their own will to power. Even the deaths of three members of a family could not slow them down.
If the party formerly known as "the Democrats" doesn’t like the factually correct "Abortion Party," how about "the Adultery Party"? Noticeably, the only incumbent Republican senator to lose was Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, who left his wife for a staffer a few years ago. I’m proud to be a member of a party that still frowns on that sort of thing.
The end result of a Democratic President’s being caught in an adulterous affair with an intern was: Two Republicans resigned from Congress. Meanwhile, the felon in the White House was revered as a latter-day George Washington by the Adultery Party. And consider that Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston were mere congressmen. Bill Clinton, Teddy Kennedy, Jesse Jackson and Gary Hart are deemed presidential material by the Adultery Party.
What a miserable party. I’m glad to see their power end, and I’m sure they’ll all be perfectly comfortable in their cells in Guantanamo. As Jesse Helms said on Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980: God has given America one more chance.
Fortunately, I've never had nightmares like that.
No, my source is a Utah Mormon whom I believe is a Republican. Why do you think Hatch gets along with Teddy Kennedy so well?
If he had committed adultery, he would never have been elected or if he were practicing adultery now would he ever continue as a Senator from the State of Utah.
As I said, he's apparently pretty good at keeping it quiet. I think you're pretty naive if you think powerful politicians can't keep that under wraps for a long time (egs. Newt, Livingston).
I've often wondered about that "genetically-unique" qualifier. Does that mean that you wouldn't object to the abortion of (n - 1) of n-tuplets? They all have the same genotype...
Michelle Malkin and Virginia Postrel leap to mind.
I don't know what a soul is, and doubt that it exists, so a fortiori I don't think it enters the body.
Helen Thomash comes to mind .....
...but we sure wish she wouldn't!
In the context within which I mentioned it, in the balance of rights between the pregnant mother and the fetus...yes.
Are you for the death penalty for murder?
You are not free to force others to give up their drug of choice. That is an infringement of their rights with no moral or utilitarian foundation.
I'm not free to force drug users out of my own house? What if me and 10,000 other people who agree with me bought a bunch of land roughly the size of California and deemed it a commonwealth. Do we not have the right to keep drug users off that land then?
But I also think the law ought to be consistent, even at the state level. I cannot think of a single facet of drugs that does not apply in some degree to alcohol or tobacco (disclaimer, I am big fan of these latter two, and do not touch drugs); therefore, what is the law on drugs in your ideal state had better be prepared to be consistent. Myself, I think choice of drug use falls far more into the category of virtue/vice rather than crime; I agree with Montesquieu that coerced virtue is nothing but slavery.
Can't a vice be criminal? Does the fact a vice is a vice exclude it from criminality? If everyone in a city hates porn and wants to keep it out of city limits, why can't they? Government is of the people and for the people. Why should 2 or 3 people ruin it for everyone?
Yes, coerced virtue is slavery, but what is slavery? Self-control and the adaptation to rules of any kind is voluntary servitude. In the case of self-control, you are a slave to your ideals, in the case of Law you have chosen to serve under the agreements of other men in order to benefit yourself in some way. Law is slavery. The best answer to this is Federalism.
Voluntary private charity is the proper domain for this.
Yes, but what guarantees the government won't use addiction as an excuse to tax?
HOWEVER, were I am only offered the Devil's choice between imprisonment and rehab, I will choose rehab as a response (for drug use, of course) every time. It is cheaper by far, and there is no way it can be worse to give someone a slim chance of breaking a habit rather than turning them into hardened criminals with a record. (ONCE AGAIN) I don't think either of these are good. But if I had to choose...
If you're going to legalize it, you don't want to force anyone to go to rehab do you? From a capitalistic perspective, privatized rehabilitation would be a good business to get into.
I draw it at where material victims other than the perpetrator can be conclusively proven to exist.
I agree with the industry aspect of legalization and legalization would take revenue away from criminals, but I'd want to have my state away from all the junkies. And who is to say all the junkies don't come over in my state and do there illegally?
Unless you live on an island, whatever you do does affect your family and friends. Doing too much dope messes you up. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it seems that even if you're not prone to abuse dope, the convenience is always there. You put it out on the mass market and you have got a million more reasons to get into the junk. I'm talking about the advertisment that's going to be thrown at you.
The election kind of shows that Republicans aren't hurt ---not by Ann Coulter's piousness or anything. It's democrats and feminists that seem to be hurt.
I actually know women who had an abortion and regret it, I've never met a woman who decided to let their baby live and regretted that ---in fact they seem horrified that they might have considered abortion at all. How can motherhood really be compared with slavery?
I'm not a "Coulter Cultist" and maybe Ann does have flaws (who doesn't?) but what liberal woman has less flaws? No liberal woman has a single original thought that I've ever heard.
That's total nonsense and you know it. There are plenty of pro-choice women who have children, so that's pretty solid proof that they did not choose to deny life to a child on at least one occassion.
If you think that human life is just DNA, then you couldn't believe in eternal life and you also must be a major animal rights activist -- since they have most of the same DNA that people do.
Then I must assume that you knew all about Robert Livingston before he abruptly resigned after being nominated for Speaker of the House.
Orin Hatch???? Oh do tell, please.
I hear from reliable sources that he has had affairs with his interns. Did you ever wonder what he has in common with his good friend Ted Kennedy? Did you ever wonder why the Republican-controlled Senate was so squeamish about trying Slick Willie?
The problem is that you can't prove that fetuses are human beings -- nor can you prove that any want to be born to mothers who don't want to bear 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.