Hopeless
I have a good friend who has maintained for quite some time that the "Democrats could still screw this up" -- referring, of course, to the 15 point generic lead that they're still enjoying in the polls, less than seven weeks from Election Day.
McCain, the Republican rebel maverick, showed that Republicans are moral and look out for their troops.
Bush, the Republican statesman and leader, showed that he is committed to protecting Americans but that he is willing to listen and compromise when people of good faith express reservations about tactics.
The Democrats showed they are ciphers who don't have the stones to even say a word when the most important moral issue confronting the government is being debated....
The Dems are all going to be twisted into pretzels and look like they have no backbones as they struggle with a united GOP saying that McCain and Huckleberry Graham made sure "the program" is moral and necessary. Vote for it for for the terrorists. So they'll end up voting for it without getting any benefit from it.
I honestly think it would have been much, much better if they'd have forced their way into the debate and taken a firm stand -- if only to show they give a damn. This is a turn-out election and I have a feeling many a Democrat's stomach will turn as they see this triumph of GOP "leadership" in action. Why bother to vote when the Democrats don't bother to show up?
Indeed. One need only look at the headlines -- "Bush, GOP Rebels Strike Deal" -- to realize how effectively the Republicans have just outmanuevered (and destroyed) the flaccid visionless rhetoric of the D-Trip et al ("Rubberstamp Republicans", which never caught on, is now replaced by "GOP Rebels" in the parlance of the punditry).
90% of politics, to paraphrase Woody Allen, is just showing up. Yet what is abundantly clear -- once again! -- is that too many Democratic candidates, mollified into complacency by generic polling ("Let's just let the other guy implode!"), have failed to show up and offer an alternative vision. And so we end up with the McCain-Bush shell game of more militarism and less moralism -- because very few Democrats in Washington (if any) bothered to show up and speak up.
And so -- not incidentally -- the generic lead begins to evaporate.
Still time to screw this up, indeed.
Democratic Jockeying
The jockeying for position in the Democratic party is looking all too familiar. The Republicans -- and not just W -- are at a point of vulnerability at the moment. The mere passage of time combines to make the moment ripe for regime change. The moment, of course, will not last indefinately.
Defining Compromise: GOP Sticks It To The Dems
I've got to hand it to the Democrats. The strategy of allowing the Republicans to "thrash out" their differences on the treatment and prosecution of detainees has played out exactly as planned...for the Republicans. Don't let anyone convince you that you can go to the well too often...that is if you are a Republican and your opponent is a fully inept Democratic Party.
Amidst a trend of favorable polling data and a firestorm of speeches by the President to refocus the voting public on their fear of terrorism, the Democrats stood in the background for the past two weeks and watched what the GOP will call the difficult work of creating legislation that preserves our commitment to civil liberties while at the same time providing our determined President with the essential tools needed to pursue those who seek to kill us all.
OK, perhaps I'm being too harsh. There is a possibility that in the past two weeks the Democrats were able to devise their sixth iteration of a campaign slogan and strategy to roll out with less than 50 days to the election. Perhaps they could call it "Fifty States, Fifty Days...But Never Fifty Percent"? It's catchy, it's succinct, and it may well be accurate come November 8th.
Read more here:
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