Redstate

One of the strongest political narratives in American history is that the successful politician makes the poeple feel that he is htere to protect against the barbarians at the gate. That he alone can save the people from hucksters and swindlers.

You don't think the left running on a platform opposing right-wing corruption will work?

Yup. And I called it here.

just like in the special election and all the polling.  Looks like they hit their ceiling in CA-50 for now.  In Nov, with Arnold running, be lucky if she breaks 40%.  And don't forget, Cunningham will be a distant memory, the Repub's will be united and prob(?) no Minuteman candidate.  Look for results like OH-2, where Shcmidt is now listed as "safe" in Nov.

I had to go to sleep. Saw this this morning and freaked out. And then I saw the quotes around victory.

For quite some time I've known that the Democrat Party has eclipsed Republicans in the Morality department. It is practically inevitable these days that the virtuous democrats will keep scoring Moral victories to keep the streak going.

The poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty states "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" It is in that kind of spirit, harkening back to that long lost and morally enlightened age, national Democrats invite the poor and huddled foreign masses to participate in our great democracy. It is in that spirit of open-minded inclusion, do national Democrats allege large scale voter disenfranchisement due to cruel requirement of World's citizens to reside in the same district of where the vote is happening. One man one vote is equivalent to one election one world, and by unilaterally limiting the amount of proletariat allowed to vote, republicans display their true xenophobic colors.

it might. Kind of hard to make that case when you, yourself, are up to your neck in free boxing tickets and your fridge is packed with TupperWare containers full of unmarked small denomination notes .

Although this is a Republican district, everything had lined up to prove the Democratic theory that the public wants that party to clean up Washington. As you pointed out, the president's approval ratings have tanked, the generic congressional scorecard shows a big Democratic edge, and most of all the Republican congressman who was to be replaced sits behind bars.

There is no way for the Left to claim anything other than than a "moral victory." As I previously posted, this may be the 2006 Moral Majority.

Let us assume Bilbray had lost. The Left would have held up the Busby victory as the harbinger of November. Those who support the Senate immigration bill would have claimed this shows the wisdom of support of that legislation. Both spins may be tried but neither will work. The first verdict has been rendered on Democratic trustworthiness and open borders and unlimited immigration. The voters said "no" to each.

It is too early to read too much into this election, but the media narrative has been destroyed. That is a good enough result.

The ABC article you link to claims Cunningham's bribery scandal was the worst in history.  Most likely the worst presidential scandal in history was Watergate with Nixon's subsequent unprecedented resignation.

Nixon beat McGovern in 1972 64% to 35%. In the next general election, following the worst presidential scandal in history, Jimmy beat Ford 50% to 48%. That scandal resulted in a 31% swing between the two elections and a victory by the Democrats.

This CA-50 election resulted in an 18% swing and a loss, yet the Democrats are selling it as a moral victory. They are projecting this 18% swing nationwide even though Duke Cunningham's scandal will be a blip on the national radar next November. And as long as the Democrats keep sending gifts in the form of Harry Reid, Cynthia McKinney, Stan Mollohan and William Jefferson, that "Culture of Corruption" campaign slogan should work wonders.

Cheers to your moral victory!

Go make sure they don't falter in doing it. Honest, it will work. Honest

I didn't know where to post this, but it is germane to CA 50 and Busby. As part of the immigration act, if it ever passes, Congress should include that an illegal alien caught  attempting to vote shall face deportation. While certainly not a felony, it is an act that can not be made by accident. Noone rationally can argue that they have rights to vote and this provision would stop that from happening...

that has doomed the "culture of corruption" strategy.  Let's be honest:  punching a Capitol guard, bribing foreign officials for a pet project,  and boxing tickets are not in the same ballpark as selling national security contracts, laundering money through federal election campaigns, phone-jamming operations, or providing pay-to-play access to US politicians.  The Dem's problem is that, without positive proof to the contrary, people are simply going to throw up their hands in frustration and assume all politicians are corrupt.  To put it another way, "culture of corruption" arguments may lower the overall turnout, but without any reason to vote Democrat most people will just say forget them all.

No ideas = nothing to vote for.  Same old Democrats.

but the fact is that security contracts (Jack Murtha's brother got $20 million for his company in the 2004 Defense Appropriation) and pay-to-play (William Jefferson) are rampant on the Dem side. How about the Mollohan funneling money to an organization he had a financial ties to while sittting as ranking member of the Ethics Committee. And while I look at phone jamming as a sophomoric stunt on the other hand you have five or six Dems get prison time for vandalizing vans used by GOP GOTV operations in Wisconsin.

So I think you are treading the fine line between being disingenuous and dishonest here by insinuating that the Republicans are really corrupt and the Dems have only done some stuff that merely looks bad but isn't in the same league.

After last night, how can the DNC leadership even remotely think that their strategy will work this fall?  I love how you pointed out that this was a special election because of the "culture of corruption."  Duke is in the slammer.  If the Dems can't see this as a sign of their defective strategy, then I am more more confident of our position in a few months.  Let's see if they change the strategy as a result of last night.  The only thing is, they would actually have to find a platform to run on, and we all know what happens when libs say what they really believe...

Let's see:

Corrupt contract deals? Check.

Corrupt campaign money? Check.

And see streiff's comment above for pay to play access and election tampering.

www.NoAgenda.org has dozens more. I'm thinking this is the ballpark you were looking for.

We should take comfort in the fact that even though the Democrats won a huge moral victory here, we at least won the actual election.

Like everyone, I was greatly disappointed to learn this morning that the election had lost its bellwether status during the night. The papers all said this was going to be a bellwether election, but now there's no mention of it. I'm not sure what happened there; perhaps the reporters forgot about it while they were asleep.

In any case, we should be good sports about it and congratulate the Democrats on winning another hard-fought moral victory. We may have to face the fact that they are just better at it than we are.

seem to be victories.

in control are corrupt.  What was missing, apparently, was enough of a fervent passion for saying that Democrats are worse.  At the moment, they are simply not, as far as corruption goes, and that is because they are completely out of power and thus have nothing to trade their scruples for.

Put another way, the highest-profile recent scandals have been DeLay, Abramoff, Cunningham, Libby (be it earned or a fault of the media).  The information produced in these cases has forced major players to step down, be indicted, even sent to prison.  Now, I have no doubt that, with a tidbit of power the Dems wouldn't be just as bad (as the 80's and early 90's showed it'd be ten times worse) but that doesn't change the fact that corruption is rampant right now and those in power are the most corrupt.

That's the best I can do -- I am being as honest as I can while phrasing things carefully so as not to get accused of bad intentions or banned.  But I am so sick of publicity stunts and corruption, and I tend to take my disgust out on those whom I supported.

my main point was simply to say that in alleging Republicans have a culture of corruption, Dems might arguably have a point (and if this is the part you wish to disagree with, fine by me).  But without offering any clear alternative (policy-wise or character-wise) to this alleged corruption,  they just inspire more disgust that works against them at the polls.

weird.

What more can be said.

Feel free to believe whatever you wish and celebrate all the faux scandals you wish, but if a Dem can't win Cunningham's seat then corruption is a non-seller.

[Dem "thinking" mode activate]

This election only proves the need to retake the national media from Republican control! Even with a convicted Congressman who sold arms to repressive rightwing Nazi regimes in jail, the culture of corruption so controls the media that they were able to defeat a much needed reformer who would have restored our civil rights, secured our phones from illegal NSA wiretapping of phone calls, and protected a woman's right to choose. Send your contribution today! Before those rabid rightwing nuts take away all your rights!

[Dem "thinking" mode deactivate]

Ouch! that always hurts, but there you have it.

I also love how the Dems keep pointing out that we can't spend 4.5 million of committee money every time we have a close race. While this is true on the face of it, it almost makes it seem like Busby didn't spend any money herself, and it ignores the fact that most of our incumbents will in fact be outspending their challengers.

From ABC's The Note: "The Democratic on-the-record and not-so-on-the-record responses (the Republicans were forced to put a lot of resources in the race, Bilbray underperformed Bush 2004, Busby's last-minute gaffe was costly and she wasn't such a great candidate, it's a very conservative district and Democrats will pick up our seats in Bluer quarters, look at how Busby performed with independents, etc...) are, trust us, not worth a warm bucket of anything."

As Leon said,

This special election was to replace a guy who's currently sitting in jail, who had a BRIBE MENU for goodness' sake.

I thought that was the take-home message of CA-50, that despite a highly visible, almost comically villainous Republican scandal to run against, Busby came up short.  The culture of corruption tactic is going nowhere.  We both believe that -- in your words, if a Dem can't win Cunningham's seat then corruption is a non-seller.  You said the reason why is credibility, and implied that both sides are equally corrupt.  I don't think that's the case -- after all Busby herself was not involved in any major corruption scandal and she lost miserably.  I went on to say that those who hold power have abused power to a greater extent, and thus I think the reason why the corruption tack failed is not credibility on the issue, lack of alternative vision and voter disgust.  In your book this means I'm celebrating faux scandals and being dishonest.  OK.

I think the reason why the corruption tack failed is not credibility on the issue, but rather lack of alternative vision and voter disgust.

what I implied at all.

You said the Republicans were more corrupt -- and you've said it twice now -- but because a few Dems have done some minor things, taken a few boxing tickets and smacked a Capitol Hill cop around, that the public thinks they are all equally corrupt.

My point is not that they are all corrupt or even close to being corrupt because I don't believe that to be the case at all. And I never said or implied that.

What I said was you can't sell the other guy's corruption as a USP in your favor when you have a lot of high profile corruption yourself.

The faux scandals are DeLay and Libby, specifically. So far, Abramoff hasn't nailed any Rs so if you want to make a scandal out of the fact that some Republicans knew Abramoff, have at it.

For the record, I have no doubts that Congressional Dems are much more corrupt than anything alleged against the Republicans and I am confident as a series of ongoing investigations concerning Torricelli, Mollohan, and Jefferson come to a conclusion people will be left asking "who is Abramoff?"

Tell him we need to buy an army surplus tank(with a spiked barrel, of course), and we'll paint "corruption buster" on the sides, and we'll drive it from state to state, and Democrat candidates can pose in the turret, and they'll look strong and protective against corruption, and we'll paint it blue so no one will think we support the war, and we'll get one of those helmet things that tank guys wear, and we'll rig a little halo on it, and...

Return us to power so we can bring back The Fairness Doctrine!