Hmmm...
Close. Pretty darned close. :-)
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.
Hmmm...
Close. Pretty darned close. :-)
Obviously not, given that 3 of the last 4 Libertarian Nominees for President (Paul '88, Browne '96, Browne '00) expressly called for the repeal of Roe vs. Wade.
Bearing False Witness is a violation of the Ninth Commandment.
Exactly! Why do you think it's called "choice"? After all, who could be against "choice"? We're all for choice, aren't we? A counseling service for women who have had an abortion advertises its services in newspapers as counseling "after choice". "Choice" is now a word to describe an event! Hurray for euphemisms!
She seems to be all about selling books rather than promoting conservativism. She's very good at singing to the choir, but this particular column lacks substance and seems rather typical of what I've seen/heard from her.
You should get your facts stratight before you criticise her.
You haven't supplied anything to dispute the facts I have presented, so all you're doing is making my point that she's very good at selling books to conservatives but lousy at advancing conservatism.
Not abortion prohibitionist zealots like you.
It's not? The distinction escapes me. Where have you been the past 30 years? Pro-choice is nothing but a weasel-worded Orwellian obfuscation for pro-abort.
Oh please. NOBODY, even Gloria Steinem and Molly Yard, would WANT to go through the physical reality of an abortion, or even have their daughters go through the procedure. Nobody is pro-abortion, in that sense.
But when you stand by and watch evil happen, even though you personally wouldn't do the evil, you are on the side of evil.
Wrong. I specifically took exception to her suggestion that Republicans "frowned" on adultery. Moreover, you said I had my facts wrong and now you're unable to back that up. You seem to be just reacting emotionally to the fact that I am not in love with Ann Coulter like so many conservatives like you who falsely claim to be less emotionally driven in politics than Democrats. Neither Ann Coulter's approach nor your approach is advancing conservatism.
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