Mickey may be right that Teddy Kennedy’s dim-witted speech three days before the Iraqi election followed by John Kerry’s typically hangdog reaction to the same event were preaching-to-the-choir for online fund-raising purposes, but I doubt it. And if he is, it’s amazingly short-sighted. The Democrat’s problem isn’t money (they had plenty of that). It’s voters. No money in the world can get them back what they lost in the last election when they lost people like me and many readers of this blog for the first time. (I used to think we were exceptional until I saw the results.) By making statements that appear on the wrong side of history they only push us further away. That is the kind of psychological misjudgment often made by extremely depressed people, which Kerry and Kennedy appear to be. They don’t need more cash from the readers of the Daily Kos. They need some psychoanalysis… or maybe Prozac.
Roger, Kennedy’s brain has been on a diet for awhile. It has lost signficant amounts of brain cells. He is no longer a thinking being. And Kerry…he sounds like a DemonCrap.
You have just said again what so many of us have been saying for a long while now in so many different ways. And I keep thinking, too, that if I say it differently, using different words, arranging them differently or using a different perspective maybe they’ll get it this time. But no. I just read yesterday that Furious George (Soros) is now blaming the Democrat’s loss on Kerry. I grow weary of trying.
And regarding your previous post regarding Dennis the Peasant – I am so tickled he’s got a blog. I already love it.
Dear Roger,
So glad you’re on our side. Your blogging on the election was such a pleasure to read. A lot of great bloggers out there, but none who write so well. Just great.
Like you I couldn’t sleep and thought to get up check on the election, but I was truly afraid of what I would learn, so I delayed logging on until dawn when started my daily surf as usual with coffee and Tim Blair (I do alphabetical blog reading). As I went through my abc’s, I started perking up. By the time I got the esses (Simon) I was so elated and delighted by your posts, I was smiling all day long.
I don’t share your views of Geraldo, but then after you got some sleep you may have thought you may have, to quote Kerry, overhyped Geraldo’s reporting a bit, or not. I do agree he’s childlike. Whether deliberately or not, I can’t say.
The leftoids’ (great new word I learned) day is done. . . and not a moment too soon.
Kennedy is an easy target, his past makes him
the principal of the School for Scandal [to borrow from Moliere]. His reach in the American electoral landscape is limited to the coasts, primarily in Boston. He is not the future of the party.
Kerry, a different breed, intends to be the leader of a shadow cabinet who comes out of the election with a reservoir of good will among a large part of the electorate. He will get media coverage and airtime for his views. No longer merely the partisan liberal junior senator from Massachusetts, he’s a real time player on the media scene. He ain’t gonna slide over for Hillary R come 2007.
She should know that he will not go gently in that good night.
Correct weapon; wrong target.
I think Mickey is right that their “plan” is to emulate Newt’s Contract for America in all out attack mode. Problem is, Newt was trying to win the base (like-minded conservatives), while the Dems have already won the partisan base and once more are ignoring the center (like me, like Roger).
I have to think that even the moveon group will grow weary of this continual whining, losing, whining…
“Kerry’s pathetic, but is he that pathetic?”
–Mickey Kaus
Has Mickey Kaus realized his error in supporting John Kerry? One can only wonder.
Roger…
“They need some psychoanalysis… or maybe Prozac.”(/i)
My 2 cents: non of the above will help…both need shock treatment.
Kennedy needs lifeguard training (in case he drives again with his secratery), and Kerry needs memory brain cells implant (to remember where he was during Christmas, to remember what he voted for before he voted against, to rememebr whether he promised to sign form 180, etc…)
I lost interest in Mr. Kaus’s pontifications when he threw his support to a candidate that he clearly knew (and described as) being the lesser choice. Party over principle is not a position that should command any respect.
There are many shrewd politicians and political operatives remaining within the Democrat party. They understand that the party has a zero chance of regaining legislative power prior to ’12 and only a slim chance to take the Presidency in ’08. A good national strategy today would be focused upon state (not national) legislative seats in six or eight of the states that are currently Republican by slim margins. Regaining control of six or eight legislatures would provide the opportunity for a re-districting after the ’10 census that might allow the Democrats to take control of the House. Barring that, they will be out of any significant power until at least ’22.
In the interim, the Dem political operatives have to live on what can be vacuumed from Commandante Marko$’ Ko$$ians and the Billionaire Boys Club bank accounts. Choosing Mad Dog Dean to lead the party makes sense if the objective is to fleece the suckers in order to keep the political pros living in the style to which they have become accustomed. It really is only about money and the professional leeches charged with gathering it. Ask Joe ‘Five Million Dollar Man’ Trippi.
The donors that Terry ‘Rolodex’ McAuliffe successfully scammed in the ’90′s aren’t particularly interested in the DNC at the moment. Access to losers just doesn’t have the same flavor as access to winners. They may toss some dough at Bubetta in ’07 for old times sake but it will be nothing like ’96.
It is very difficult to argue that the Hero of Chappaquidick, the author of ‘My Cambodian Christmas’ and Sheets Byrd are not the true face of the party at the moment. If that is so, why is Mr. Kaus indignant? They are all his boys.
Personally, I’m beginning to think it IS for the money. Any campaign funds they can raise go into their future “Foundation” money, from which they can pull plenty of expense dollars. Not a bad retirement.
Rick,
I like reading Kaus, he’s a funny guy who is perfectly willing to criticize his own party. Now, I suspect that his loyalties lie with the old Democratic party, not the new. So at some point he will either dedicate himself to trying to reform the party — a thankless task that I have no stomach for — or he will follow the path that many of us here have followed. I think that there are many Democrats in that position, many more than made the switch last time around. As all the sleeper leftist nutcases continue to surface, the task of reforming the Democratic party will become more and more onerous. I suspect many more folks will eventually come to join us here in the middle.
I’d like to say you were right, Bunker, but Kennedy and Kerry are two guys for whom money is, to put it mildly, a rather minor issue. Of course, their minions could use some, but still… I’m skeptical
What is this “New Democratic Party” I keep hearing about? I saw this comment on another blog:
DU doesn’t represent the future of the Democratic party – they represent a fringe which we will hopefully marginalize and force out of our ranks. The New Republic represents the future. NewDonkey.com represents the future. Simon Rosenberg, a great candidate for DNC chair, represents the future.
Being the openminded sort, I took a look over at NewDonkey, and found this:
The Bush administration, dating back to its negligent preparations for winning the war and the peace, has done little to make this day the triumph of democracy it has so often predicted.
I respond:
http://shortfinal.blogspot.com/2005/01/gallery-of-political-wet-blankets-2.html
I just found a great John Podhoretz line on Kerry’s choice to be negative about the Iraqi elections on the very day of:
“he has the emotional intelligence of a pet rock”
What you said, Roger!! I’m 59 years old, a lifelong Democrat, who changed her registration to Independent, and voted straight Republican for the first time in my life. Soros, Kerry, Kennedy etc…they just all turned my stomach. And still do. I can’t picture myself ever going back to the Democratic Party. What I get from them is mean-ness. I never thought I’d say this, but the Republicans were gracious throughout this whole election, and the Dems were viscious. I experienced it first hand where I live. I was really shocked, and very disturbed.
This isn’t all that unusual. When you think your message is correct (as the Democrats clearly do…) but voters still turn you down at the election, you go out a buy a bigger bullhorn.
Dems won’t figure this out until they learn that their message IS getting out and that’s WHY voters are rejecting them – not the other way around.
Roger,
Did Kerry leave a dime of his own dough on the line? Is his campaign account in deficit? Do you think money flows from Kennedy? What productive enterprise have the Kennedys engaged in that might account for the increase in family fortune (aside from ol’Joe’s shrewd realestate investments)?
Putting money into politics is for suckers like Corzine, K,K & C. know how to keep the coffers full from the public account.
Chuck,
Mr. Kaus is very intelligent, writes with decent wit and can be very amusing. What has that to do with principles? Leaving the articulation of party ends to the lunatic fringe while denigrating and then supporting a sham mouthpiece with no discernible principles at all ultimately does no service to the party. Mr. Kaus would do his party a much greater service by proposing a handful of ideas, or programs or principles that a person could be for than he will ever do in simply pointing out the ugly nudity of the current contenders for a presently worthless imperial throne. It requires a child’s innocence to make the Emperor’s New Clothes work as a perpetual story line.
You may be absolutely correct that more and more will join here in the middle but that would be extraordinarily dangerous if it were to last more than 10 years or so. The potential for damage is much higher today than it ever was during the ruinous pursuit of ephemeral idealistic ends by autocratic means pursued by the Democrat party during its tenure. It may be that the Democrat party is beyond reform but the idea of a monolithic single party state with the power of the US should scare anyone quite badly.
ìDems won’t figure this out until they learn that their message IS getting out and that’s WHY voters are rejecting them – not the other way around.î
In that case I am looking forward to Republican White House and Republican majority in both Congressional Houses for the rest of my natural life (and I hope that I have few good decades in me yet). These people will never reform or change because that would require introspection, self-criticism and rejection of the ideology that they hold so dear. Democrats will reform only when the ideological Old Guard will literally die off.
Rick,
I also stopped reading Kaus after his ìThe country need a breather from this nasty War on Terror thing, so vote Kerryî article. But his excuse was worse than ìParty over principalî; unless of course you mean ìcocktail party.
Rick, political parties do come & go. It’s happened before. If the Democratic party were to die off, I think the Republican party could split, with social conservatives in one bunch and libertarians in another.
That would still leave me in a pickle, being a hawkish libertarian, but I would have choices, unlike now. A vote for the Democrats is now a vote for the crazy people, and I won’t waste my vote that way.
Roger,
I think Bunker is on to something. In the case of Kennedy he doesn’t need money – what he needs is some way to feed his ego. What he’s after is to be the Chief Shrill preaching to what’s left of the adoring choir. In the case of Kerry he needs a gravy train and the Heinz gravy factory will likely jettison his useless butt before long.
What we’re seeing may well be the Big Rats siphoning the last of the fiscal bilge from a sinking ship. The heady days of the McCaullife money machine feeding huge cash to the same, tired, old losers is bound to come to an end. The huge, pissing and moaning money hose that is the Democratic Party is bound to redirect the cash spigots sooner or later – nobody keeps sending good money after bad forever. The “old” is grabbing for what they can get and the “new” is fighting for positioning at the trough.
I love all the talk among Democrats about the need to spend vast sums “catching up” with the Right. “We need think tanks.” “We need radio networks.” “We need blogs.” Talk about putting the cart before the horse.
What they need are some coherent, well articulated ideas. I have no clue about how Dems would approach the thousand and one problems we face as a society, a nation and member of the world community (I’m afraid “reach out to our traditional allies” and “throw more money at it” just don’t cut it). All I ever hear is what they oppose (heck, I’ve already got a handle on that–they oppose anything Bush is for). They can’t all be that intellectually vacuous. Can they?
Roger: i would easily vote for a candidate from either party. i have no loyalty at all to political labels and party affiliations, despite my long conservative voting history. i appreciate your commentary and support of the effort in Iraq as that of an intelligent openminded counterpart from the left. freedom isn’t the only thing, intelligence is in mix. and the ability to see that longterm peace, stability, and security sometimes costs those very things in the shortterm, is key. thanks.
The single most overarching quality of every Bush-hating lefty I know (which is about 80% of the people I come in contact with) is an utterly inexhaustible reservoir of self righteousness and a sense of moral and intellectual superiority.
To admit that they’ve been had, been the dupes of a propaganda campaign, and horror of horrors, those stupid, evil Republicans could be RIGHT…would be such a crushing blow to their esteem that they would rather die, or kill, than admit it. Mere greed for money is not sufficient motive to explain such self- destructive behavior, rather it is the sense of pride or shame borne in the defense of a conviction of a religious nature upon which one has bet the farm, and oneís reputation.
That’s not to say that outside the political arena many of these folks aren’t normal (though many lefties are moonbats through and through). It’s just that politics, like religion, can make otherwise compatible people mortal enemies.
Ego trumps money every time.
Yadid,
Speaking as a Psychoanalyst/Psychiatrist, I think these folks are so invested emotionally in their own ideas and verbal productions that their sense of reality and ability to see has been compromised. Only the shock therapy of a Goldwater type landslide against them is likely to change the Democratic party. SInce I beleive we need a two party system (one party systems always become corrupt and un-democratic) I am hoping for this in 2008 since they weren’t convinced by 2004.
From,
A life long Democrat, first time Republican voter in 2004.
I’m too lazy to do the search and dredge up the link, but I recently read and article claiming (somewhat persuasively IIRC) that the Democratic Party has not been this weak in the various forms of local, state, and federal government since 1909.
With very few, short-lived, and shallow exceptions, the Dems controlled the nation’s legislatures for nearly a century. During that time they created an enormously powerful money pump. They are now in serious decline. But as anyone who has ever witnessed a huge corporation in decline knows, truly big money machines don’t disappear overnight – just the installed base and maintenance contracts keep them alive for years and years. The Democratic Party is failing but there’s still money to be made and power to be wielded. To quote an old, and successful salesman of my acquaintance, “You can make a lot of money being either the first salesman in a company just starting up or the last salesman in a company that is dying.” The Dems are dying as a party and the “salesman” are scrambling to make whatever money they can before its too late.
As Rick Ballard said, it is in none of our best interests to have a one party system. With a few decades of power the Republican Party is likely to become as corrupt and self-interested as the Dems became. Unfortunately we can’t get another useful party until the Dems go through their full death spasms and something else rises to take their place or the Republicans split along, I would guess, the Social Conservative vs. Libertarian fault line.
Knuck,
ìThe Democratic Party is failing but there’s still money to be made and power to be wielded..î
How long 7 billion can last, you think? Thatís what Soros is worth, I believe, and he promised that he would dedicate his life and fortune to getting rid of Bush and his vile neo-cons.
I am not interested in one party system, I experienced it first hand and it is not pretty. But somehow I cannot imagine this happening here. Somebody somehow will step in, perhaps the more sane branch of libertarians, to compete with Republicans.
Democrats in their current form are beyond redemption. If they crush, burn and get destroyed I will not shed a tear.
With Senators Kennedy, Bayh, Dayton, Byrd, and Heinz Kerry all saying offensive and stupid things about Rice’s nomination and they and eight other Democratic senators voting against her confirmation (the first votes against confirmation of a Secretary of State in more than two decades), no responsible person can claim any longer that it’s just the fringe of the Democratic party that is reflexively anti-Bush, anti-war, etc. Thirteen out of forty-four Senators is far more than a fringe.
Paul,
The “Bush hating lefties” are the chickens to be plucked by a phalanx of party operatives who are currently unable to partake in a spoils system that they no longer control. I wish it were subject to objective verification but I believe very firmly that the babbling baboons at the top are making these ludcrous statements to keep the dough flowing. The lunatic fringe counts for less than a third of the current party but if you toss in the Billionaire Boys Club I’ll bet they amoubt to over 60% of party income. Hell, the Moveon morons claimed that they bought the party fair and square and want Mad Dog Dean to lead them.
I’ll grant the ‘true believer’ status you claim for the fringe but it really does just boil down to money. Fiscal bankrupcy is close on the heels of the intellectual bankruptcy that has been afflicting the party for years. Watch for a stricter enforcement policy on union scofflaws who have been avoidng the consequences of the Beck decision. There is a good possibility that a class action decision based on Beck could bankrupt a few unions and remove another font of party funds.
Look, the Democrat party raised and spent more money than ever in its history and got bupkus for it. It takes a very special kind of idiot to continue to throw good money after bad and party leaders have identified the fringe as meeting that criterium. This ain’t rocket science.
Katherine,
Take heart! The beauty of the American system is Creative Destruction. We are coming out of what were, essentially, One Party Years in so far as that is possible under our system. The Dems were the One Party. Being the One Party is a recipe for decline. It took the Pubs a long time to get their act together enough to challenge the Dems, but it happened. And it will take a long time for the Dems to complete their decline.
Creative Destruction is not quick, nor efficient. It is, fortunately, extremely effective over the long haul. We have our struggle but the system is build to survive – it won’t collapse. Don’t confuse efficiency with effectiveness. We’ll get, over time, effective. We’ll continue to muddle through without efficient.
The world is full of problems. Fortunately the US is the longest lived, muddle through to something pretty darned OK nation on earth. Our problems are minor compared to those faced by, for example, the FSU, the overburdened and over-reaching EU, and even the up and comers like India and China. I’d rather face a future of muddling through our problems under our system than bet a plug nickle on any of the others ability to solve their problems.
The Democratic Party survived the Civil War and the Republican Party survived the Great Depression. The two parties, as they are currently constituted, will likely survive right through the end of governance under the present Constitution.
The 2004 election was pretty much what I wanted it to be (a referendum on Iraq) and I’m fine with the fact that 62 millon Americans voted for the President and 59 million voted for the Senator. Until 2004, the top vote-getter was President Reagan in 1984. He received 54,281,858 votes.
It’s not about voters. At the conclusion This Week on October 31, 2004 George Stephanopolus noted that the two parties took different approaches to GOTV in 2004 and that on Tuesday we’d find out who was right. We found out.
“It is what it is,” is what Pope John Paul II is reported to have said after viewing The Passion of the Christ and what President George W. Bush is reported to have said after hearing the numbers in those erroneous exit polls.
It’s not about money either. The Democrats are in better financial shape than they’ve been in in, at the very least, decades.
One thing it is about is that very rarely is admitting to being mistaken or to being unsure seen as anything other than weakness and weakness is treated as practically criminal by all too many of us.
This isn’t going much of anywhere, but I do think about this in Thucydides from time to time:
…As for the citizens who held moderate views, they were destroyed by both the extreme parties, either for not taking part in the struggle or in envy at the possibility that they might survive.
As the result of these revolutions, there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The simple way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps, and each side viewed the other with suspicion. As for ending this state of affairs, no guarantee could be given that would be trusted, no oath sworn that people would fear to break; everyone had come to the conclusion that it was hopeless to expect a permanent settlement and so, instead of being able to feel confident in others, they devoted their energies to providing against being injured themselves. As a rule those who were least remarkable for intelligence showed the greater powers of survival. Such people recognized their own deficiencies and the superior intelligence of their opponents; fearing that they might lose a debate or find themselves out-maneuvered in intrigue by their quick-witted enemies, they boldly launched straight into action; while their opponents, over-confident in the belief that they would see what was happening in advance, and not thinking it necessary to seize by force what they could secure by policy, were the more easily destroyed because they were off their guard.
There are two ideologically hostile camps in the United States. The ideology may consist of little more than a less-than-rational disdain for and distrust of the leader(s) of the other camp, but the hostility is real. Luckily, there are a lot of moderates and a lot of people who just want to be left alone and there is a Constitution that is full of checks and balances on the concentration and abuse of power. Long may that remain the case.
Kyda Sylvester,
I hear the “Democrats just need some ideas” meme a lot, but is it really true? It seems to me that they have lots of ideas and we all know what they are. A few I can list off the top of my head: withdraw immediately from Iraq, provide more control by the UN over US military forces, provide more money to the UN, raise taxes on rich people, nationalize the health care industry in the US, reduce military spending, increase spending for the National Endowment for the Arts, use international law as a precedent in Supreme Court decisions, decrease corporate ownership of the media, pay reparations for slavery, sign the Kyoto Treaty, etc.
Is it the case that they don’t have any ideas or is it that the voters have soundly rejected the ideas they do have?
My take on both that Drunk Kennedy and Brainless Kerry’s comments are that they were.
Kennedy-Positioning for a catastrophy on Sunday, not.
Kerry-was invited to discuss the obvious failure of the Iraq experiment on Sunday and explain how he would have ridden a White Horse to save the day. Too bad NBC was a too late in being able to cancel the show.
I love the airtime these guys get.
My next project is getting out the DNC vote to elect Howie
Rick Ballard:
You certainly know far more about the political machinations at work here than I do. My observations are at a grass roots level, living and working in a hotbed of leftism.
I also had the misfortune of being raised by members of an extreme utopian religious sect, so I’m particularly sensitive to the psychology and behavior of what I call the “terminally self-righteous”.
No doubt the professional members that make up the Democrat Party infrastructure are fighting for their livelihoods, but I’m more interested in the particular pathology that causes one to strap an explosive vest on one’s child, or shovel Jews into ovens. I see the seeds of such behavior planted in the hearts and minds of the people who express such insanely vicious hatred for Bush and the Republican Party. So much so that they wish to see their country defeated and humiliated. Just another brand of “suicider”, imo.
Knuck,
I have no doubt that you are right.
I think that one of the best characteristics of American life (political and otherwise) is adaptability. I like to think about it in terms of evolution. Adaptability (or flexibility) is critical for survival under all conditions. Even if some systems are more efficient under certain set of existing external conditions, they are likely to collapse should the external circumstances change. While we will muddle through. I like that way, way better.
Patrick Tyson,
Thank you for one of your best posts ever.
I would however take issue with this statement: “There are two ideologically hostile camps in the United States.” That’s not at all how I see the situation. I see a vast “center” or “group of moderates” who generally favor capitalism, democracy, free speech, civil rights, religious freedom, etc. I see huge agreement on all these issues among Democrats and Republicans. Nearly everyone on here of whatever stripe belongs to this group. On the other hand there are a large number of extremist “hostile ideological camps”, a number far larger than two, who want to change the world radically. There are extremist libertarians, for instance, and Focus on the Family, Democratic Underground readers, radical environmentalists, and as Glenn Reynolds pointed out today there are even people who are romantic about the Confederacy. There are so many of these fringe groups with so many competing and rather utopian agendas that I would hesitate to apply the old labels of “left” and “right” at all.
But among all this myriad of fringe groups the only one that seems to matter, from where I sit, are the Daily Kos/Moveon sorts who, funded by billionaires who have their own murky agendas, seem to represent a large fraction of the Democratic party. Focus on the Family may want to arrest gay people, for example, but my observation is that gay rights are growing everywhere, not declining, so I conclude that Focus on the Family just doesn’t matter. By contrast, daily Kos/Moveon seems to be controlling several of the Democratic Senators and is on the verge of controlling the whole party. That seems significant and worrisome.
The Iraqi election exposed the utter incoherence of the Democrat’s criticisms of the Iraq war.
Sure, you could argue (quite rightly) that Iran is a bigger supporter of terrorism and a bigger threat to America than Iraq under Saddam Hussein. You could also argue that the war on terror will never be won as long as Saudi Arabia is controlled by Wahaabiists who spend billions of dollars spreading anti-Western hatred.
However, it is clear that Saddam Hussein was a supporter of terrorism. He was also a brutal dictator who oppressed his people and offered them no hope, thereby creating the kind of conditions that lead poor, disaffected, wayward youths to join terrorist groups.
If you listened to the Democrat’s rhetoric over the past year or so, you can’t help but come away thinking that they saw some sort of connection between the insurgency and “no WMD’s”. It’s as if they believe that the absence of WMD’s led people to join the insurgency. Their mantra was “Bush was wrong, and his wrongness has bred terrorists”.
How could anyone with half a brain not see what a vested interest the terrorists had in preventing Iraq, or any other Arab nation, from embracing democracy? How could anyone with half a brain not see that after doing nothing to fight back against terrorism for all these years, that the terrorists would pull out all the stops and try to scare us off now that we’ve finally decided to fight them, regardless of which Arab country we chose to invade?
If you see a wasp’s nest on the side of your house and you take some insecticide and spray it, of course you’ll be “less safe” while you’re standing there spraying it. But once it’s sprayed the wasps will start to die, and in a day or so, you’ll be “more safe”.
Democrats like Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean and John Kerry insult the intelligence of Americans by giving a doom and gloom analysis that’s full of bluster yet is devoid of any logic. If people want to believe that Bush, Rove, and the rest of the Republicans are evil, and every move they make is motivated by greed and other sinister intentions, that’s fine. But this attitude has obviously led many otherwise intelligent people to not allow their brains to engage in the most elementary reasoning.
I can’t help thinking that a lot of this has to do with the fact that the Democrats have the mainstream media completely in their corner, so they think they can say anything and it will be given credibility. This is very scary. All the screaming from conservatives about the liberal media is 100% justified. For the sake of our national sanity we need a media revolution in this country. It’s starting to happen, and not a moment too soon.
I agree that a two-party system, which of itself tends to dampen any thoughts of revolution, will continue indefinitely here. There have been influential 3rd-party runs over the past few decades, however. Both major parties are susceptible to defections, and not all split off groups pull from the extremes. John Anderson pulled votes from the middle, and Perot pulled from everywhere.
I don’t know how I’d feel about a centrist third party. Which center, after all? the foreign policy, economic, and social questions would split the party of the center as well. And it would be hard not to suspect opportunism rather than conviction of any prominent politician who tried to grab that group.
There are coming realignments around immigration and biotechnology as well. I think predictions of the death of the Dems are premature.
WichitaBoy—
Thanks.
I cut a paragraph I’d written that rehashed more electoral history and traced this current period of real hostility based somewhat on party affiliation back to at least 1972.
The other side felt much the same as you now feel when Bill Clinton was President and Richard Mellon Schaife was financing all manner of groups and individuals opposed to him personally.
And while I agree that the middle is, in some respects, vast and also think it will hold, I also think there is something to other words from the same poem:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Best.
Promoguy — Howie’s looking good; the state Dem chairmen just endorsed him.
Now if we can just goad Boxer and Kerry into giving a few more speeches and keep slipping the ipecac into Hillary’s chowder…
Promoguy — Howie’s looking good; the state Dem chairmen just endorsed him.
Now if we can just goad Boxer and Kerry into giving a few more speeches and keep slipping the ipecac into Hillary’s chowder…
ìNow if we can just goad Boxer and Kerry into giving a few more speechesî
Thatís a presidential dream team if Iíve even seen one!
ìNow if we can just goad Boxer and Kerry into giving a few more speechesî
Thatís a presidential dream team if Iíve even seen one!
Or we could substitute, say, Maxine Waters, Robert Byrd, or Cynthia McKinney for one or both of them. Or Dennis Kucinich. Or Gavin “my city’s bankrupt and I’m in Davos” Newsom. Or . . .
fwiw, ‘the school for scandal’ is sheridan, not moliere.
Patrick,
Good post. One minor quibble:
“It’s not about money either. The Democrats are in better financial shape than they’ve been in in, at the very least, decades.”
According to latest financial reports the Dems appear to have a net 5 mil deficit. Surely in recent decades past they had a positive balance a time or two. Or did you mean something else?
greeneyeshade ó And you don’t want to piss off Sheridan. Dab hand with a smallsword… used to duel his critics, IIRC…
Sheridan was my kind of guy/writer/politician.
http://www.theatrehistory.com/irish/sheridan001.html
Rick—
It’s something else. By that measure, you’re almost undoubtedly right. The difference is that I don’t see any concern that they’ll have trouble raising as much money as they feel they need.
Best.