Political Geniuses my okole
By DavidThi808 Comments (52) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I wrote this on my blog and thought you might find it interesting. Keep in mind I am a liberal, not a conservative. And also, I did not post this because I thought you would like my conclusion, but because I thought you might find it worthy of thought.
So without further ado, here it is (and comments on my blog are greatly appreciated):
I had a very unusual and interesting view of a campaign from the inside this last election. I am an active Democrat and liberal. I donated a couple of thousand dollars both here in Colorado and nationally to Democratic candidates. And from reading my posts here you can see where I stand on a range of issues.
But 7 weeks before the election Jerry Coffee had to drop out of the U.S. Senate race in Hawaii and the Republican party tapped my mom to take his place. My mom is a moderate, strongly pro-environment Republican (things in Hawaii are different) but she is a Republican.
She needed my help and I have incredible respect for the job my mom has done as a state legislator for the past 16 years. I have no doubt she would have been an incredibly effective Senator. So I got to work helping her on the campaign.
So here I was, a staunch Democrat, working in the belly of the beast, talking to major players in the Republican party, working to elect that one more Senator that could mean control of the Senate.
Note: I have not posted confidential info I learned as that would be wrong. There were also a couple of people in the Hawaii Republican Party that were very helpful and I have not listed them because the rest are then singled out as not doing much.
Looking at the race at the time, and again in hindsight, this race truly would have determined control of the Senate. Not by her winning as that was an incredible long shot. But by making it competitive. And that would have been easy.
If the Hawaii race had become competitive that would have pulled money and mind-share from MT and VA to HI. And it would have done more to the Democrats who would have had to suddenly focus on a formerly safe seat than for the Republicans who merely had to stir things up.
What didn't they do? First off, we had zero help from the national party. Absolutely nothing. In fact the only help from outside Hawaii was from RedState and the day before the election interviews on Lars Larson and Hugh Hewitt (a big thank you to all three).
No money. Campaigns live and die on money and with only 7 weeks to the election and absentee ballots hitting the mailboxes in 2 weeks, there was no time to raise funds. The state Republican party donated $5,000.00 and the national party nothing. So a giant amount of our effort had to go in to fundraising (and we raised over $330,000.00 in that 7 weeks).
And no national effort to steer some donations to Hawaii. It shouldn't have been the number 1 priority but is definitely was worth some 2nd tier support - it would have been a lot more effective than the money waster in OH and PA. Our fundraising was time that could not be spent winning votes - in the last 7 weeks of the campaign.
No experienced campaign help. As my brother said, in 8 weeks we would have a good idea of how to run a campaign. But by then the election was over. What should we put in the radio and TV spots, when and where should we run them, what else should we do. We were amateurs on this and it showed. The spots got better but we never had one that moved the electorate several points - and a very well crafted ad will do that. We didn't need their top team but providing some help when we had no experience would have been a giant improvement.
There were no independent ads. Now garbage like the ads run against Ford in TN would have first of all gotten my mom very very mad (her first instructions to all of us was keep it positive). And it would have been a disaster in Hawaii where race is a major issue - but it's different from how it works on the mainland.
But a strong ad campaign from 527s and/or the RNCC could have moved the vote 4 - 8%. And this was an easy target. Akaka's favorables were only 45% and his unfavorables were also 45%. He had just come out of a primary where Ed Case had beat the hell out of him and he won only 55% in that primary. Here was an easy target. And yet… nothing.
And of course there is that famous Republican machine ability to target golfers who own snowmobiles and hit them with targeted mail and phone calls. Nope, does not exist in Hawaii.
And in the blogosphere we had nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was it. And I'm a proud member of DailyKos. I didn't even know where the conservative blogs and websites were. I definitely didn't know how best to post in them. Again, having someone who knows this territory and could put in even ½ hour a day would have been a gigantic help.
The gigantic vast right wing conspiracy? Apparently they aren't aware that Hawaii exists. No blogs, columnists, media, etc. They had post after post and hour after hour of time for Rick Santorum (41%), Michael Bouchard (41%), and Mark Kennedy (38%) and zero for Cynthia Thielen (37%). Even CNN - nothing.
Now we come to the local support in Hawaii. There wasn't much. Unstoppable Republican machine? Ha!
There was no GOTV effort. It was there for Gov Lingle(R) who is the most popular governor in the country. I guess they wanted to see how high they could run up the score. But there was no GOTV effort anywhere else by the party for Republican candidates. Small surprise that the Republicans win so few state level seats.
And the local Republican and right-win blogosphere? Nothing. Even the elected Republicans in Hawaii could not be bothered to post something for any other Republican candidate. I could not find a single post supporting another Republican. The local Democrats get it - but the Republicans seems to be off in another world.
But the one that takes the cake is this bozo. If he doesn't get the nomination, then screw the party. Vote Democratic or leave the ballot blank. Talk about a sore loser. The right wing of the Republican party in Hawaii is not working to get Republicans elected. It is working to pull down any Republican candidate that does not parrot the extreme right wing platform.
There were also letters and in person comments from several active Republicans - how dare she call for the resignation of Rumsfeld. Because of that they were not going to support her. And yet Bush clearly planned on firing him the day after the election.
So we had no support from the national party. No support from the VRWC (except for RedState, Lars Larson and Hugh Hewitt). And the supposedly all powerful Republican GOTV effort, targeted voter system, etc - no where to be seen.
And yet we almost beat the vote received by Bouchard, Kennedy, Santorum, and McGavick. By ourselves. In 7 weeks. With just 330K. Somehow I don't think Karl Rove with all of his famous charts had any idea what could be done here.
And I don't think anyone in the Republican party at the national level ever stopped to think that if they made Hawaii look competitive, that would have meant wins in Virginia and Montana.
Personally, I love my mom and I think she would have made a great Senator. (I think she would have made good on her pledge to do what it takes to have no oil imports in 10 years.) But I also think it was more important for the Democrats to win the Senate 51/49 and if the Republicans had instead won VA and MT that would have been 49/51. (I also think that with active help, this race was winnable.)
So I'm glad that the Republicans were both stupid and ineffective. And for those of you still worried about the powerful Republican machine - I've seen behind the curtain and there's nothing there.
Which brings up this explanation. Bush "won" 2000 in a fluke, both Gore running away from Clinton as well as the voter suppression and ballot insanity in Florida. Since then the Republicans have had one issue to keep control - 9/11. But that's it.
All this talk about a political realignment, a powerful Republican machine, etc - all this may be total garbage and is just a story sold to the media. Makes a better story than they're not very good politicians but "9/11" made up for that.
If so, there has been a major realignment due to the last 6 years. The Republican party has been captured by it's wingnuts. The moderates have been driven out. And with "9/11" no longer working it's magic, all the party has is its evangelical and wingnut base. And that base will work to insure that only candidates too extreme to win the general election win the primary.
In other words, all Karl Rove and company may be is a political Forrest Gump. He's definitely no Mark Hanna. And President Clinton may preside over an even more Democratic congress in 2008.
But you don't have to be a genius to come up with a strategy for convincing Americans to vote for Republicans based on policy reasons.
You do have to be a genius to outsmart the media and the left-wing scandal-mongers.
I hope that Rove is around to chart the course for our upcoming wins in 2007 and 2008.
It took a lot of guts to admit that. Enjoy the reward for the less stupid while you have it. I pray that you will propose all the tax increases, civil rights for terrorists, and amnesty for illegals that you have dreamed of for a decade. Also, for old times sake, take a shot at defunding the war and impeaching Bushlied. Go for it. The American people are behind you.
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
http://gamecock.townhall.com
I think this would be a more interesting conversation if you would discuss what the Democrats are actually proposing. On some items there is room for bi-partisan progress where having both sides work together will lead to better laws. I'm hopeful that Immigration, tax reform (not cuts), and NCLB will be better this way.
As to the war in Iraq - if both sides keep shouting at each other all that will happen is things will keep getting worse and soldiers will keep dying. And that would be awful.
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
http://gamecock.townhall.com
On some items there is room for bi-partisan progress where having both sides work together will lead to better laws. I'm hopeful that Immigration (SS benefits for illegals), tax reform (hikes), and NCLB (dramatically increased Federal spending) will be better this way.
---
"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
If you are unwilling to even try to find common ground.
Your approach is like the kid at the playground who says if he doesn't get to be quarterback he'll take his ball and go home. And then complains that the other kids won't play with him.
...the chaplain's gone over the hill.
Your side won; now, your side gets to govern. Have we not been told, over and over and over again, that last November's election results represented a repudiation of conservative / Republican principles? So I'm sure that you'll be able to fix all of the country's problems -
- which are, by the way, [now] strictly, unquestionably and exclusively your problems, not ours -
- without our help. Quickly, and with no bobbles.
So get cracking on it, already. You're on the clock.
Moe
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
The constitution makes it very clear that foreign affairs is the responsibility of the President. So I'm afraid that the Republicans still own Iraq - much as you would like to turn it over to the Democrats so you could then blame them.
And they are all our problems. You may choose to take your ball and go home but we all face the same problems.
The terrorists and insurgents are acting as I and many predicted, they are becoming much more violent as they try to make sure the Democrats make good on their promise and surrender Iraq to Al Qaeda. The problem for the terrorists and insurgents is the American people will not accept handing Iraq over to the Islamo Fascists. The Democrats claimed our departure would force the Iraq government to stand up to their task (as if they weren’t doing so???). So here is the result of Democrat promises to date on Iraq - bloodsher and disorder as the terrorists plan for the Democrats to fulfill both the dreams of liberals and terrrorists allike:
The Bush administration charged yesterday that the escalating violence in Iraq committed by both Shiites and Sunnis over the past two days is a “brazen effort” to bring down the fragile government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The White House also said President Bush has no intention of backing out of talks next week with the Iraqi leader, despite threats yesterday from a powerful Shiite militia to pull out of the government if Maliki goes ahead with the meeting. The talks, set for Thursday in Amman, Jordan, have suddenly taken on the air of a crisis summit, as Iraq slides closer to all-out civil war.
The Democrats never said they would pull out so the country COULD devolve into bloody civil war and the democratically elected government would be overthrown. There was no election promise to accelerate the fall of Iraq. The truth is the current hope for US surrender can be and should be laid at the feet of the Democrats here in the US who gave the world the impression they would run from the Islamo-Fascists if elected. Sadly there are enough ignorant people across the world who actually believed the Democrats. Or at least believed they had the power and will to force a surrender on Bush. But the Democrats have neither will, nor power nor intentions of surrendering. They made things worse and now they will be held accountable.
As unfair as it seems, the current situation is now owned by Bush and the Democrats. They have sufficient political power right now to start to form the debate and set the expectations. They are doing nothing. They are like deer in the headlights. They won, and as predicted, they have no clue what to do right now.
Bush is right, as is Maliki. If we show no sign of folding (got that Dems - no sign, as in unified front, as in one American policy, as in standing shoulder to shoulder with our men and women in harms way, were politics should end at the shoreline of our country) then the Iraqis will hold firm. They will only crumble if the US is sure to depart. Al Qaeda is on the verge of losing its fantasy Capitol City of their Modern Caliphate - Ramadi, Iraq. And they hope and optimism now flowing through the insurgents can be squashed easily by Democrats coming out and standing firm that they will not allow Iraq’s democracy to fail from a simple lack of will. Yes, if things blow out of control that is one thing. But simply having to stand up and say “we will support the democratically elected government of Iraq as it gains control of the entire nation” is not a huge price to pay to actually crush the Islamo Fascist movement. Is it Dems? You won’t even have to institute a draft to be seen as taking a winning position. These are just words, I am sure Dems can find the stamina to get past the gag-reflex and spit them out with some modicum of conviction. One thing dems are good at is spitting out words with faux conviction!
One other thing to keep in mind with all great wars - the fighting and dying hit a fevered pitch right when the pivotal test of wills is occurring. As with WW II and the Battle of The Bulge, which was Hitler’s last gasp, the death tolls during these periods can be the most intense of the entire war (see my previous post here). This has been true throughout time - from the Battle at Antietem in the civil war to the Road To Iraq in Gulf War I (where there was a massive killing of the Iraqi’s as they feld Kuwait) there fighting hits a fevered pitch right at the point the final outcome is decided. If we are at that point we simply need to stand firm and behind the less than one year old Maliki government. And if the Maliki government survives this test, it will be stable for quite some time to come. The press and the left is simply panicking (or some who are rejoicing in the bloodshed). Don’t mind them, they never grasped the situation and understood how to succeed.
Update: Something to consider from Pierre Legrand concerning the common threat we all face and how to understand what it represents. And it represents this question: Is America still ascending through history - or are we declining?
Posted by AJStrata on Saturday, November 25th, 2006 at 11:43 am.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/2998
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
http://gamecock.townhall.com
to your comments about Bush-Florida 2000. There was vote suppression but it was in areas controlled by Democrats. There was ballot insanity but the insanity occured in areas controlled by Democrats. It wasn't in Republican counties where people went to "ballot seances" trying to discern the mind of the voter. It wasn't Republicans trying to have overseas military ballots disqualified. It wasn't Republicans trying to get the courts to force selective recounts in majority Republican counties. Yes, Bush "won" in 2000 on a fluke; the fluke was that the Democrats were not able to manipulate the system quite enough.
As a Republicna I resent you coming here and sanctimoniusly lumping me and my compatriots as "evangenicals and wingnuts." I'm not an "evangelical" (as evil as you make that sound) and as far as I know none of my Republican friends and associates are the strange two-headed "evangelicals." I'm not a wingnut and as far as I know none of my Republican friends and associates are wingnuts. While I disliked Clinton and his lack of morals and hatred of the military, not once in those eight years did I or anyone I know wish him dead.
The evil Rove machine didn't work in the case with which you now have intimate familiarity and you think that you now know everything there is to be known about Republicans and what we believe. Take it back to Kos.
John
--------
Ethic humor is part of human nature. The Dutch tell Belgian jokes. The Belgians tell French jokes. The French tell English jokes. The English tell Irish jokes. The Irish tell Irish jokes.
In this election we had the same thing here in Colorado - the morons handling voting in Denver (very Democratic) had things so screwed up that over 30,000 people left the 3 hour lines and did not vote. And this lost several state-wide Democratic candidates the election as they lost by maybe 2,000 votes.
Most of the screw-ups in Florida were by Democratic counties. On the flip side, voter supression in Florida did disproportionally eliminate Democratic voters and that was headed up by the Republican party.
As to wishing you dead - I don't. Almost every election I have voted for 1 or 2 Republicans including this last one. And I have always been a strong supporter of a 2 party system. I want the Democrats to win more than the Republicans but I think our country must have a healthy 2 party system and we need many of the ideas that come from the Republican side.
If what I think has happened is accurate, that worries me.
You manages to retain your assertion that voter suppression/elimination was headed up by the Republican Party. I'd expect you to show proof of that assertion. I'd like you to show me evidence that there was disproportionate elimination of Democratic voters managed by the Republican Party. In Florida voting is the province of the local (county) elections boards and in all the counties in question, Palm Bleech, Broward, Dade, Orange, Hillsborough, et al) those counties are majority Democrat, the country commissions are majority Democrat and the, I beleive, the elections supervisors are/were Democrats at the time. As I said, there was voter suppression going on; by Democrats attempting to toss out military absentee ballots, cherry picking recounts, etc.
Secondly I was not referring to some non-existen wish on your part for my death or the death of the Republican Party. I was referring to blatant calls from the left for the death of the sitting president and the failure on the part of the Democratic Party and its leadership to loudly and continuously condemn this kind of behavior as un-American and un-democratic. If you are going to lie down with dogs you'd be wise to expect fleas.
What ought to worry you is that it is the left, aided and abetted by the Democratic Party, that absolutely refuses to condier any and all reasonable measures to deal with voter fraud, illegals and dead people voting, people voting multiple times, etc., and to run to the courts every time an election does not go their way. The Democratic Party in America has become an contradiction in terms. That, among innumerable other left wing inanities and insanities, is what ought to worry you.
John
--------
Ethic humor is part of human nature. The Dutch tell Belgian jokes. The Belgians tell French jokes. The French tell English jokes. The English tell Irish jokes. The Irish tell Irish jokes.
Because a couple of idiots on the left have called for the death of President Bush you then paint us all with that brush. Does this mean I can say you do Meth with a gay hooker as Rev. Ted Haggard did?
I don't know of anyone in any position of responsibility in the Democratic party who supports a call for the murder of anyone. Do they wake up every morning and condem it? No - just as they don't daily condem child abuse. Doesn't mean they support it.
As to voter supression, the voter lists are maintained at the state level in most states including Florida and Ohio and while there is a trade-off between dropping legit voters and allowing fradulent voters as no system is perfect, both Florida and Ohio have gone way overboard in that they have dropped many thousands of legit voters.
Here's one article and the Nation while partisan tends to get it's facts right - http://www.commondreams.org/news2001/0412-02.htm
I have been telling for a long time that the two-party system gives us the choice of voting either for the Insane Party, a.k.a. the Democrats, or for the Stupid Party, a.k.a. the Republicans. Hell of a choice, isn't it? It is, of course, less damaging to be governed by stupid people than by insane ones, but, as Mr. Thielen's post amply demonstrates, being stupid makes it more difficult to win elections than being insane. One of the innumerable Democrat insanities is to have foreclosed all the avenues leading to energy independence. Without our dependence on foreign oil, the grave threat of islamic terrorism would be much milder - or would not have materialized at all. At least Mr. Thielen's mother realizes the vital importance of energy independence, but the well meaning remedies she proposes do not have the slightest chance of achieving that goal. As a (retired) Doctor of Engineering who spent most of his career working on energy generation, I can tell with certainty that achieving energy independence takes a lot more than what Mrs. Thielen proposes. It takes adoption of nuclear power for all our electricity needs, drilling in the Artic and the continental shelf, and possibly using nuclear-generated energy to synthesize liquid fuels from coal. At any rate, I agree with Mr. Thielen about the stupidity of the Republican Party, but I don't expect him to admit to the insanity of the Democrat Party's policies.
Please take a look at this post on Daily Kos (I wrote it). Take a look at the comments and the poll results.
Among the people on Daily Kos, who are much more liberal than Democrats in general, there is still strong support for Nuclear power.
What is required is a politician from either party, or preferably one from each, to make this their primary job in Congress.
I'm surprised that you didn't get more flak from the "no nukes" crowd.
The other solution to the oil shortage problem, the energy independence problem, and the terrorist funding problem is drilling for oil in places like Northern Alaska.
I'm very pleased that both Hawaii senators supported this bill.
I'm disgusted that John McCain derailed it.
The Democrat Party has been SOLEY responsible for weakening the United States in ways the former USSR only dreamed of (although the green movement was sponsored by them and has been the repository for frustrated communists and socialists to pursue their agenda against us after their economic ideology was utterly discredited with the fall of the USSR)and that our present jihadist enemies directly benefit from.
Post Three-Mile island Jimmy Carter, the democrat congress in the 80s, Clinton in the 90s and the filibuster dem minority in the senate since 2000 have prevented the construction of even one new nuclear power plant or oil refinery and have prevented the opening of new oil fields
all under the mantras of the need for alternative sources of energy and our dependence on polluting foreign oil. How the desire for a an alternative and refusing to allow us to meet our current needs with present technology and resources achieves the goal, I do not know. i do know that this singular act has done more damage to the national security of the US that anything any enemy has done to us in my lifetime.
If our enemies plotted to damage us, they couldn't have done a better job.
Coincidentally, if our enemies wanted to hire agents to subvert our will to fight and win the current war, they couldn't do a better job that the defeatist democrats.
Coincidentally, the same people blocking energy resource increases are also the same ones that share talking points with al qaida, Saddam's lawyer, Iran's prez and Kim Jung Il.
Yes, I know that there are some conservative democrats that are the useful idiots of the dem lib majority.
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
http://gamecock.townhall.com
The Republicans have controlled everyting for the last 6 years and still the Democratic party was so powerful that they were able to stop any serious proposals for Nuclear Power even being brought up?
I had no idea we wielded that level of power.
As to the Democrats being defeatest - there was a lot of Democratic support for the Iraq war at first (including me). The problem is that it has been prosecuted so ineptly that Bush/Rumsfeld/etc have not left us a way to win.
It's not defeatest to say the war is no unwinnable if it truly is now unwinnable. In this case the most important thing we can do for this country is to figure out how best to leave to minimize the future threat to this country.
Look back to the Civil War. Once Sherman had marched through the South destroying it's industrial base and Grant had taken Richmond Robert E. Lee understood that continued fighting was not only useless but would further hurt the South. He was not a defeatest, he was someone who could see reality even when it meant everything he had fought for had lost.
Those that disagree with you are not necessarily your enemy. And at times they will actually be right and you will be wrong. I find it better to listen to all sides and look for what makes the most sense rather than to label all who I disagree with an enemy.
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
http://gamecock.townhall.com
"It's not defeatest to say the war is no unwinnable if it truly is now unwinnable."
With respect, we're the greatest military power in the world. The Iraqi and foreign insurgents - aren't. If we choose not to win the war, we won't. But that's because of our choice, not because we can't.
If you're going to complain that Bush's conduct has made the war unwinnable, consider: Is our military position in Iraq really worse than it was when Hussein was still in power? Surely not. And if Bush has not been using enough force to win, that can be changed.
Wouldn't it be more forthright to say you think we shouldn't be there, if you indeed think so?
I can argue that it turned into a disaster because Bush/Rumsfeld/etc did a horribly incompetent job. Or I can argue that even if they had done a really good job, it might still have been impossible.
But the bottom line is we are now in a place where we can't win there. We can choose to stay and not lose. But we won't win unless we are willing to impose a brutal military dictatorship on the country.
We are the greatest convential military power in the world. But this is asymetrical warfare similiar to our revolutionary war when Britian was the greatest power on earth and the U.S. was incredibly small and weak.
Same setup - overwhelming power does not mean we win. If it did this war would be over by now.
Then please read this. We're 4 years in and it keeps getting worse. Not better, not the same, worse.
A last-minute candidate with 7 weeks of campaign time, $330k in funds, without the support of the national party, no experienced political operatives, no GOTV efforts, and no independent ads almost beat the Democratic candidate?
What does that say about Democrats?
We should be worried now?
-TS
"What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'd like it to mean?" - Justice Antonin Scalia
She lost 61-37.
--
It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. -- Calvin Coolidge
I supported your mom's campaign. I wanted to see her win. But, it's hard to pull it together in 7 weeks, and when you are swimming against the tide, as Republicans were, you don't go for one of the largest-looking waves.
You also say that RedState helped, but then you come on here and blast us. Why? Because we thought that Virginia, Montana, or Missouri were better chances? They were. And in regards to Pennsylvania, I would rather have a minority with Rick Santorum than a majority without him. The only reason he lost (and it still boggles me) is because his opponent had a popular father.
Don't come on here and spout off like we betrayed you. We helped you, and now you rail against us? You can go back to Daily Kos for all I care. And, next time you come back, try speaking out of the orifice in your face, not the one on your backside.
Don't be afraid to see what you see.-Ronald Reagan
For more common sense conservatism, visit the Show Me Conservatism blog.
I may not have been clear enough in my pre-script. This was initially written for my blog and I copied it here - so it is written for a liberal audience.
I posted it here as I thought some on RedState might find it interesting - is the Republican machine capable of bouncing back in 08 - or will there be further Democratic gains then.
And it definitely was not betrayal by anyone. And RedState was the one conservative body that was supportive - and very supportive (hence the thank you above). But for the rest of the conservative operation, it definitely was neglect.
And I think the neglect did cost the Republicans the Senate.
you used in your blog title.
Sorry, rules is rules.
The more money dems spend trying to put Hillary in the White House, the more likely it is that Republicans take back both the House and Senate in two years.
'Nuf said.
First, I want to thank you for writing about your mother's campaign and giving us this post-mortum. The insider perspective is quite interesting.
Second, I would hope by being forced to work with Rs for a while you might have encountered people who could go against some of the groupthink in your post. The most noticable was the conspiracy theorizing about FL 2000 where the most obvious suppression came from VP Gore trying to get military ballots disqualified. More subtle, however, was this: "And it would have been a disaster in Hawaii where race is a major issue - but it's different from how it works on the mainland." I would hope that someone explained that the Ford ad was only about race to kossites. To the rest of us, it was about a man who has never had to work a real job in his life. It was about someone who inherited his seat, lived a playboy lifestyle on the taxpayers bill, and now wanted a promotion for all his efforts. The fact that Ford dated white girls in DC (including an acquaintance of mine) was never made into an issue because so few people care about interracial dating. Put otherwise, the same ad could have been run regardless of Ford's race. The only people who saw a racial angle were those on the left which I presume is due to a deeply held belief that anyone not on the left is racist, which is a view that is reinforced by groupthink at places like dkos.
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
http://gamecock.townhall.com
The first thing they'd do once they've recaptured Congress in 2008 is put a guy in charge of the House Intelligence Committee who is $8mil in debt and who has been impeached and removed from the judiciary for accepting a $150K bribe. It's a good thing for the country that no one in the GOP is THAT dumb.
2006 is done, 2008 is another day and another fight
...the bottom line is both parties have sleazebags in office. We Dems have Hastings and Jefferson and I am sure others. You guys had DeLay, Ney, Cunningham, and I am sure more.
I don't pretend that our side is all angels and only your side has people that should never have been elected. And as long as we elect human beings, we will have this problem.
All we can do is bring pressure to bear against the worst whenever we see them - on both sides. That's why I have so much respect for Jeol Hefley (from here in Colorado). I don't agree with his politics but he tried to do the right thing on the house committee investigating DeLay even though it was his own majority leader.
Same for Nancy Pelosi who took away Jefferson's leadership positions.
And how many of those people will be in office come 1/2007? That's right, all the Democrats and none of the Republicans on your list. One of the Democrats is even being rewarded for his corruption with an important and very sensitive committee chairmanship.
It's become abundantly clear how much Democrat voters care about scandals and that is not-at-all, so long as the offender is a Democrat. The problem is from the ground up on the Democrat side of the aisle. Nothing is going to be done about corruption there until the base stops giving their crooked politicians a free pass.
---
"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
Boy are you going to be disappointed over the next couple of years. I'll bet there are more Republicans outed on this than Democrats for the simple reason that the Democrats were out of power and therefore had less to sell.
And the Democratic party at least took action on Jefferson - the Republicans initially chaged the rules so DeLay could stay majority leader after being indicited.
If you keep running the Democratic Party Line generator too much it's going to break down, don't you think?
--
It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. -- Calvin Coolidge
You must've got those tapes I've seen advertised on TV, "Now, you too can quote out of context!" Or did you just run out of space in that huge quote for the words immediately following and modifying the four you quoted:
...on your list
If you are going to lie (which is exactly what this is), do it about something that can't be so readily disproved. Or at least create a Wikipedia entry about it then post the link to lend it some credibility.
---
Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
Your entire post was:
Please quote where he said there are none. nt
You didn't have any qualifiers - you just asked for the word none
So don't call me a liar for answering your question accurately. You may have meant something else but then put in a full question. I can't read your mind.
To misinterpret a comment, quote a few words of it out of context when confronted with your misinterpretation, and then to blame somebody else for your (apparent) lack of reading comprehension?
Come on. It doesn't take a mind-reader to follow the thread of that discussion, and your assertion to the contrary only disservices you.
---
Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
I would wager that your basic conjecture is more-or-less correct. The deep, dark electoral secret of the GOP the last six years or more has been that, in actual fact, they aren't the political geniuses that they've sometimes been made out to be.
Consider, then, the opposition.
He is a good man but I don't think a genius. The Republican Party is made up of people who value God's plan for our country.
We lost this election because too many who got into our party were not true Republicans and were more interested in their own good rather than our country's.
But Republicans will come back strong in 2008 as we align our purpose again.