Posted on 12/22/2002 8:19:37 AM PST by Mudboy Slim
Despite the pleadings of Al Gore, the shameless racial pandering of William J. Clinton, and the arrogant prognostications of Terry McAuliffe, Republicans trounced Democrats in Tuesdays mid-term elections. The GOPs electoral volley not only won control of the U.S. Senate away from progress-retardant Tom Daschle, but also revealed mainstream Americas disgust with the Clintonian status quo.With several high profile gubernatorial and Senate setbacks, the political utility of Bill Clinton and his burly gang of hirelings appears exhausted. In New York, incumbent Governor George Pataki throttled Bill and Hillarys handpicked candidate Carl McCall, even after a series of black church jamborees that featured the nations first black president and her majesty, New Yorks junior senator. Massachusetts liberal Shannon OBrien, a major beneficiary of Clinton and Al Gores hyping, lost convincingly to Mitt Romney, and Bill McBride, who Terry McAuliffe guaranteed would be Floridas next governor, was embarrassed by incumbent Jeb Bush. Al Gores appearance in New Hampshire only worsened the thrashing Craig Benson administered to Democrat gubernatorial hopeful Mark Fernald.
In perhaps the most gratifying triumph for the GOP, Robert L. Ehrlich humbled Marylands Democrat establishment, with a convincing win over liberal Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. According to conventional wisdom, this was a race Ehrlich had no business winning, with Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Ted Kennedy stumping on Townsends behalf. But despite the Democrats 38-year death grip on Annapolis, Ehrlich carried the day, winning as much as 25 percent of the presumably inaccessible black vote.
In the Senate, most of Clinton and McAuliffes favorites tasted bitter defeat. Jeanne Shaheen lost to John Sununu in New Hampshire, while Paul Wellstones festive memorial featuring Bill, Hillary, Terry and Al cost New Democrat Walter Mondale a shot at defeating Norm Coleman. In Texas, John Cornyn handily beat McAuliffes choice, former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, and Missouri voters rejected incumbent Jean Carnahan in favor of Republican Jim Talent. Continuing an embarrassing trend, former Bill Clinton water-boy Erskine Bowles failed in his bid to win in North Carolina; the loss was yet another defeat for former Clinton administration dirt bags.
Democrats won a single race against a Republican incumbent--the senate race in Arkansas where conservative voters rightfully punished Tim Hutchinson for his philandering. Tellingly, Democrat victor Mark Pryor rebuffed Bill Clintons attempts to appear in Arkansas on Pryors behalf.
Moreover, several Clintonian referendums on the ballot in various states went down in flames while other more conservative measures passed muster with voters. Nevada, the home of legalized prostitution, amended its constitution to affirm the sanctity and legitimacy of marriage between only a man and a woman. In Northern Virginia, overtaxed voters resisted Democrat Governor Mark Warners sales tax overture. Normally progressive Massachusetts voters endorsed an English-immersion ballot measure, as well. Collectively, these midterm results demonstrate the political impotence of Bill Clinton in all but the most depraved communities. The former president has destroyed the Democrats. Indeed, during the past decade, a once respectable party has deteriorated into a collection of aggrieved victim groups under the dutiful coaching of Arkansass hacks, Bill and Hillary. The Democrats lost their congressional majorities and the White House, and party policy-makers still cant articulate any new ideas that resonate with the American public.
The party that once boasted respected intellectuals like Daniel Patrick Moynihan now features mudslinging yahoos like Terry McAuliffe and James Carville, obnoxious, militant feminists such as Hillary Rodham and Kathleen Townsend, and whining congressional obstructionists in the mold of Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt. Fraud, deceit, and semantic gymnastics, the calling cards of Bill Clinton, now characterize the admirable party of FDR and Harry Truman.
Consequently, many Americans, including the growing black middle class, are disenchanted with the Democrat party. In Marylands gubernatorial race, Robert Ehrlich and Michael Steele received unprecedented support from certain segments of the black community, in a state long-controlled by race-baiting Democrats. Despite Bill Clintons gratuitous assertions that the GOP suppressed black voters in 2000, Florida voters resoundingly affirmed their trust of Republicans like Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush. Calculated attempts to sew anger and hatred in predominantly black precincts simply didnt work; blacks either stayed home or voted for Republicans.
The wild card in all this, though, is the lack of accusatory rhetoric coming from Democrats. Many assumed an army of Democrat lawyers and civil rights whores would challenge certain election results. But this time around, there were no mystifying butterfly ballots, no contentions of mass black voter disenfranchisement, no judges keeping the polls opened an extra three hours, and no ballot boxes turning up the morning after the election. Perhaps all contests would run accordingly if Republicans monitored precincts to keep soulless liberals from stealing elections.
The American electorate is moving away from the nasty, destructive elements of Clinton-style politics and towards the more reasonable course advocated by President George W. Bush. The President has been given a mandate to push his agenda and heres hoping he does just that.
The downward spiral of the DEMs has begun. It is up to us to see that it continues. FReepers make a difference, one FReep at a time. CHEERS to all FReepers. FReegards, my FRiend, keep up the battle. ...Balata.
Sadly, the Welfare system rewards for bad behavior. How do you break the cycle? It's particularlly tough when several generations have lived their entire lives, cradle to grave, under the State and have no life experiences outside it.
Great post, my FRiend...MUD
FReegards...MUD
What we NEED to do is applaud their bumbling malaprops of racism & such and enthusiastically encourage them to KEEP DOING IT!!! Play it up with huge grins on our faces & tell the public "SEE...They're worse than anything they accuse us of!" and ask them to show us more, for I'm sure they will.
(Mudboy on harp...)
I dreamed I met Jim Robinson,
Dude's loved by all who FReep!!
Lurkin' 'roun' Jim's Forum, FRiends...
Fightin' fer our Liberty!!
We're defending our Right to Bear Arms...
Leftists' Culture's oh so cold...
Battling fer the Country's Soul...
Our Forefathers Make US Bold!!
"RiseUP, my FRiends!!" MUD sang out loud,
In a voice with no restraint,
"Come out, my gifted FReeperFRiends...
Help US Put Slick in CHAINS!!
No Lib'ral is amongst ye now...
Whom you can call "HERO!!"
So Fight the Fight Fer Liberty...
And know You're Not Alone!!"
(MUD workin' the harmonica hard...)
I dreamed I FReeped with Rush Limbaugh,
Libs cower at his every breath!!
And I dreamed I was amongst the ones...
Who FReeped Slick 'til his Death!!
NO, I don't FReep in anger,
Just becuz EX-Prez'dent LIED!!
I just like whuppin' DemonRAT A$$...
And Raise My Voice With Pride!!
(Sweet Harpin' to close...)
FReegards...MUD
Merry Christmas!
I'm over here now, what do I do?
Take yer time, though, we're leving this competition open 'til we git AT LEAST 10 quality entries fer both lists.
Holiday FReegards...MUD
There'll always be new RATS to destroy, so let's not start feelin' PITY fer the murderous bastards...They're Nothin' But RODENTS!!!
Merry Christmas to you and yers...MUD
Dems, prepare to meet thy doom!
That's the spirit, Merry Pippin...and we shall begin the RAT disembowelment with MackerPee!!
FReegards...MUD
My ol' man emailed this to me...
Washington Post
> November 26, 2002
> Pg. 29
"My Heart On The Line"
> By Frank Schaeffer
"Before my son became a Marine, I never thought much about who was defending me. Now when I read of the war on terrorism or the coming conflict in Iraq, it cuts to my heart. When I see a picture of a member of our military who has been killed, I read his or her name very carefully. Sometimes I cry.
"In 1999, when the barrel-chested Marine recruiter showed up in dress blues and bedazzled my son John, I did not stand in the way. John was headstrong, and he seemed to understand these stern, clean men with straight backs and flawless uniforms. I did not. I live on the Volvo-driving, higher education-worshiping North Shore of Boston. I write novels for a living. I have never served in the military. It had been hard enough sending my two older children off to Georgetown and New York University. John's enlisting was unexpected, so deeply unsettling. I did not relish the prospect of answering the question "So where is John going to college?" from the parents who were itching to tell me all about how their son or daughter was going to Harvard. At the private high school John attended, no other students were going into the military.
"But aren't the Marines terribly Southern?" asked one perplexed mother while standing next to me at the brunch following graduation. "What a waste, he was such a good student," said another parent. One parent (a professor at a nearby and rather famous university) spoke up at a school meeting and suggested that the school should "carefully evaluate what went wrong."
"When John graduated from three months of boot camp on Parris Island, 3,000 parents and friends were on the parade deck stands. We parents and our Marines not only were of many races but also were representative of many economic classes. Many were poor. Some arrived crammed in the backs of pickups, others by bus. John told me that a lot of parents could not afford the trip. We in the audience were white and Native American. We were Hispanic, Arab and African American and Asian. We were former Marines wearing the scars of battle, or at least baseball caps emblazoned with battles' names. We were Southern whites from Nashville and skinheads from New Jersey, black kids from Cleveland wearing ghetto rags and white ex-cons with ham-hock forearms defaced by jailhouse tattoos. We would not have been mistaken for the educated and well-heeled parents gathered on the lawns of John's private school a half-year before.
"After graduation one new Marine told John, "Before I was a Marine, if I had ever seen you on my block I would've probably killed you just because you were standing there." This was a serious statement from one of John's good friends, an African American ex-gang member from Detroit who, as John said, "would die for me now, just like I'd die for him."
"My son has connected me to my country in a way that I was too selfish and insular to experience before. I feel closer to the waitress at our local diner than to some of my oldest friends. She has two sons in the Corps. They are facing the same dangers as my boy. When the guy who fixes my car asks me how John is doing, I know he means it. His younger brother is in the Navy.
"Why were I and the other parents at my son's private school so surprised by his choice? During World War II, the sons and daughters of the most powerful and educated families did their bit. If the immorality of the Vietnam War was the only reason those lucky enough to go to college dodged the draft, why did we not encourage our children to volunteer for military service once that war was done? Have we wealthy and educated Americans all become pacifists? Is the world a safe place? Or have we just gotten used to having somebody else defend us?
"What is the future of our democracy when the sons and daughters of the janitors at our elite universities are far more likely to be put in harm's way than are any of the students whose dorms their parents clean? I feel shame because it took my son's joining the Marine Corps to make me take notice of who is defending me!!!
"I feel hope because perhaps my son is part of a future "greatest generation." As the storm clouds of war gather, at least I know that I can look the men and women in uniform in the eye. My son is one of them. He is the best I have to offer. He is my heart.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book, co-written with his son, Marine Cpl. John Schaeffer, is "Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps."
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