WaPo to GOP: You Are Doomed, Part II
By Erick Posted in 2006 — Comments (24) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
As if it is not enough that the "Security Moms" are leaving the GOP, WaPo also reports that K Street is looking to hire more Democrats.
Washington lobbying firms, trade associations and corporate offices are moving to hire more well-connected Democrats in response to rising prospects that the opposition party will wrest control of at least one chamber of Congress from Republicans in the November elections.
In what lobbyists are calling a harbinger of possible upheaval on Capitol Hill, many who make a living influencing government have gone from mostly shunning Democrats to aggressively recruiting them as lobbyists over the past six months or so.
The K-Street'ers, probably a more accurate indication of whether the GOP might lose the House, thinks that the Democrats might just take over Congress. But, Jeff Birnbaum cautions . . .
At the same time, some lobbying managers see peril in trying to guess which way voters will turn. "Reading tea leaves can be tough; it's hard to time the political market," said David M. Carmen, president the lobbying firm the Carmen Group Inc. "There will always be time to make adjustments if that needs to happen after the election."
That is one reason some firms are putting off their hiring until after November. "People haven't been rushing to hire lobbyists anyway; it hasn't been the bang-up year," said Gregg L. Hartley, chief operating officer of Cassidy & Associates. "To the extent I can hold off hiring until the first of next year, I will."
Frankly, were I a GOP member of Congress right now, I think I'd be more worried by this than by the "security moms." K Street seems to have a good sense of these things. However, were I a GOP MOC, I'd also be telling myself that this election season really won't matter until after Labor Day. At that point we're going to need to start taking stock of where things are.
The GOP has a rapidly closing window to get its act together. It has a few more legislative days to score points. That said, we are starting to get into the danger zone of, if not total loss of the House, a pretty striking defeat.
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WaPo to GOP: You Are Doomed, Part II 24 Comments (0 topical, 24 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I don't think the President's term limitation is a factor. He was pro-illegal alien before his second term. He was focused on taxes rather than spending before his second term. He ran on a rejection of conservatism (feeling the need to call himself, in opposition to tradtional conservatism, 'compassionate') the first time around.
While he is the party leader, and I DO blame him for a lot of the party's lack of direction today, I don't think the problem here is short-sightedness.
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"In this day and age, you're not going to get a fair shake in the media" -- Lance Armstrong
this simply signifies the end of DeLay's K Street Project and the lobbying firms have returned to status quo ante.
because the local candidate can not, or will not articulate traditional, conservative values and convey the absolute moral bankruptcy of the Democratic Party and its willingness to abandon the national security of America to the corrupt child rapers in the UN.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
The constant harping about the failure of OIF has convinced people who don't pay any attention, other than watching the news reports presented on evening television, that OIF is failing. The reporting of the "good" news out of Iraq is always overshadowed by the bombs exploding and the people dying. Yet, when the statistics of Bagdad deaths is compared to US Cities, it doesn't outstrip the violent deaths rate in Washington DC. (http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/ia05_king/sp_20060503_stats.html; and I quote:
"..., I did find the numbers for Iraq. For Iraq, the victims of violence, and in that we include the bombing victims, of civilians and those that are victims also of murder in Iraq, it comes down to 27.51 deaths per 100,000 per year,..."
"Now, how does this compare across the rest of the world? Well, one might look at a country, say, like Venezuela, 31.61 violent deaths per 100,000. So Venezuela is slightly more dangerous to live in than Iraq is."
"And Jamaica, 32.40 violent deaths per 100,000 compared to the 27.51 in Iraq. Jamaica is slightly more dangerous to live in than Iraq."
"And then you have South Africa. It jumps all the way up to 49.60."
"Now, we are starting to see some numbers here that take us up to almost twice the rate, it is a little less than twice the rate of Iraq's fatality rate; 49.60 in South Africa per 100,000."
"But we do have some numbers that go over twice the rate. One of those would be Colombia. Iraq, 27.51 deaths per 100,000; Colombia, 61.78 violent deaths per 100,000, more than two times as many deaths there. It is more than twice as dangerous to be a civilian living supposedly in peace and harmony in Colombia than it is to be a civilian living in the middle of this chaos in Iraq that I hear is intolerable."
"I am going to go to Washington, D.C.; 45.9 deaths per 100,000, Mr. Speaker, compared to the 27.5 in Iraq per 100,000."
"Detroit, 41.8. It is getting a little safer in Detroit than it is in Washington, D.C., but still far more dangerous in Detroit than it is in Iraq to be a civilian."
"Baltimore, 37.7; Atlanta, 34.9; St. Louis, 31.4. We are getting down there closer to the fatality rate to live in St. Louis rather than living somewhere in Iraq at 27.51.")
So, to start preaching that "Everyone is abandoning the GOP!!" will only work to sway those not paying attention to what the Democrats are saying, and who want to vote with the crowd. Of course, the crowd is predicted to vote with the Democrats, after all, they are for the people, while the GOP is for Big business, and "Everybody knows" that Big Business stands for greed, and trampling of the working man. "Everybody knows" that the tax cuts only helped the rich. So when you see "the Polls show" just realize that the statement is really no different than "Everybody knows."
Chuck
You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means. --Indigo Montoya (Princess Bride)
Civilian deaths in Iraq should be compared with civilian deaths in other places. These figures, for all deaths from violence in other places, should be compared with all deaths from violence in Iraq.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
What concerns me, other than civilian deaths, is Iraqi living conditions. Electricity is only available a number of hours out of the day, and I've heard other sobering statistics on their quality of life. Don't want to make an enemy out of the populace, but they've already held a massive rally against the US, shouting "Death to America". Very unsettling!
"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."
-James Madison
but electricity is above where it was under Saddam. The critical difference is that where Baghdad used to get electricity 24/7, now it gets about the same amount as everyone else.
inner city ghetto, created by the liberal plantation system which has been the hallmark of the Democrat nanny state Party, you will find "sobering statistics on their quality of life".
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
Interesting, and true. But I'm concerned with the fact that the Iraqis are chanting "Death to America". There have been few organized attacks on society by the poor in the past hundred years, in my knowledge, but I can't say the same for the middle east. Their hatred for their condition, and concievably of us, could make terrorism more of a problem for us.. regardless of comparisons to living conditions here or elsewhere.
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
-James Madison
if you don't include robberies, murders, assaults, burglaries, and drug dealing as organized attacks you may be right.
Personally I find the typical MoveOn/ANSWER rally much more disturbing than Iraqis chanting Death to America. I always tend to be more shocked to find people who purport to be Americans doing that.
Yeah, true, how does crime compare? We have a pretty high violent crime rate, as far as comparable countries go. I'd be interested to see the statistics. But looking at what's happening in Iraq now, with 3,000 civilian casualties this month in a nation of 25 million, I believe? The average citizen in certain areas seems to live in far more serious and perpetual danger than we do in this country, all things considered. We don't have comparable sectarian violence, given population density, land area, etc.. Generally speaking, if you're in a public place in the US you needn't concern yourself with injury and death. If you stray into a dark alley in New York at midnight wearing a nice suit, I can't say the same. Iraq seems fundamentally worse.
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
-James Madison
This actually makes me think of a point. The democrats are routinely charged with being soft on terrorists because they want to reform them, while the republicans are routinely charged with war mongering because anything goes when it comes to killing the terrorists. I think there's a happy medium between the two: clearly we don't want to hug the guy with the rocket launcher pointing at us - that's irresponsible and stupid. But we also want to address, and in the future prevent, the greviences that pissed off these people enough to have them point a rocket launcher at us. I think that a lot of people probably agree, which might be part of why there's a danger for republicans in the upcoming election - the people want a more balanced, less vitriolic strategy. Anyway, that's off topic.
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
-James Madison
move it to a diary.
BTW, this isn't aimed at you in particular as you've had willing accomplices like me. Just aimed at the thread.
Good point, this guy suggests the same thing on those numbers and sheds a little more light 1/3rd of the page down.
you are claiming that you want to expunge all of our murders to make the violence look worse than it is, because then you can compare insurgency death against our non-insurgency situation?
because it looks to me like King included the casualties from the so called insurgency in the violent category before comparing it to the US, which means the "real" [by you] violence rate in Iraq is even lower than King quoted?
Frankly, I find that even more dishonest than what you accuse King of doing.
Or even vary carefully.
If you want comparable figures, you have to include police and military deaths in both cases or in neither. You cannot include them in the one case and not the other.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
are extremely jealous that they do not dominate the lobbying industry as they ahd done for decades.
Big deal.
Fortunately the elections are fought and won in the deistricts.
is what is likely to cost Republicans this election, wherever and whichever seats they lose.
I've met some of them, they think they know what's going on because they are plugged into the decision makers. But the real decision makers in our society are nowhere near DC, and for the most part stay as far away from entanglements with it as they can manage. The real decision makers make thousands of seemingly non-consequential decisions everyday, but those decisions have more influence on where we go as a society than even President Bush, who clearly has the most concentrated power in our governmental structure. Right now, those decision makers are saying they don't like the way K street thinks.
- many who make a living influencing government have gone from mostly shunning Democrats to aggressively recruiting them as lobbyists over the past six months or so.
I call BS. The first thing any firm would do if they smelled change would be to freeze hiring until after the election. The last thing they would do is "aggressively recruit" somebody who might be the opposite of what they need.
Secondly, I seem to recall that Tom DeLay had to go whack those guys upside the head to remind them, five years later, that the 40-year Dem majority in Congress had ended. Now they are making speculative hires, just in case? Bull. Perhaps next the Post will tell us that the R lobbyists are being laid off so that D's can be hired.
Third, practically everyone who would be a desireable hire in this area also has dreams of landing some top job on The Hill if the D's win. Anyone you can easily grab now probably isn't any good. The lobbyists know that, even if Post reporters don't.
Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.
Only a fool would actually hire a Dem betting on an election 90 days away that would have to go really strong to the outs to change Committe chairs. Besides, are we to believe3 that the Donks haven't been getting well greased by the existing lobbyists? A congressman would set an appointment with OBL if he thought there was a check in the deal.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
Even unrealistically, what could be done to salvage public opinion of the GOP? People are dissatisfied, and while I would argue that this is almost entirely the fault of the President himself, he's not up for reelection. No, a GOP Congress that realized too late the cost of enabling him, is. The worst part is that we're most likely to pay in the House, the only one of the three elective branches where conservatives have any real power.
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...conservatism, in the philosophic sense, does not define the conservative movement; rather, the conservative movement now defines conservatism...