’)Reading these new ratings from Stuart Rothenberg (he sees Dems +6 in the Senate and +34-40 in the House) I must ask: is there anyone who isn’t a rabid partisan or Republican official who sees the GOP holding the House? Anyone?
I am trying to maintain my pessimism but its really hard when National Review’s Kate O’Beirne is on MSNBC saying the GOP’s going to lose 30 seats in the House.
I still stick by my 16 seats because thats all we need. But I want more, and I will be horrible if any of this stuff remotely comes true.
MORE: The House GOP contract took another nosedive today while the Iowa markets almost hit a record high in favor of the Dems.
It doesn’t matter who says it, if it’s the truth.
The Dems will wake up scratching their heads on Nov 8…
Blame the media!
Karl Rove!
Diebold!
Their played out ideology?
Their defeatist foreign policy?
Their tax and spend “band aid” domestic ‘policy’?
Never
Just Karl Rove and the kool-aid drinking minions of the radical right. At this point, we’ve got 14 seats sown up in Democratic leaning districts, so we only need to win one of the remaining 30+ races to gain control of the House. You’re right Oliver everything after the minimum is just gravy. The more we get the louder the message to W, and the less influence the DINO’s have on the legislative agenda.
I think you will take the House and maybe the Senate (I still don’t think Ford carries Tenn – may be wrong), but has it occurred to you that, at least to me, it seems the winners are all ‘Republican light”. Webb an ex Reagonian. Ford sounding more like Frist than Frist. Casey long an anti abortion moderate. Nelson a moderate already. Many others. Then Lamont losing to moderate Lieberman. I guess you believe some, at least Ford, will be much more liberal when in power than advertised – having fooled the working people (who think he is conservative) you derisively call rubes.
But think about that. Very little of the progressive agenda in any of this. And then with 2008 around the corner, those in power can’t go hog wild. Even the long term leftist haters. So you envision show trials with Commissar Conyers – but they may not happen.
Dugger, Cold Water on A friday morning
Look at dugger spin…hey dugger Charlie Rangel, Nancy Pelosi, Alcee Hastings BOOOO!!!
Lieberman isnt moderate, Dugger. The man is a conservative “democrat.” Thats like saying that Zell Miller is a moderate, and anyone who doesn’t like how he went to the republican convention and sold out the democrats by lying about Kerry’s record is just opposed to non-partisanship.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that the GOP, having lost the war in Iraq, is calling Democrats “defeatist” simply for pointing it out?
Anyway, I’m with you, Oliver. Fewer House seats than expected, and only 4 Senate seats. Anything else is just Christmas morning. And if Allen loses, that will make my year.
Dugger, we liberals are used to having to work through moderates to get our agenda through. It’s nothing new at all.
Rex,
Lieberman’s 2005 ADA rating was 80%. The median between Republican and Democrat was around 55%. Arizona D Nelson and Ohio R Dewine are near the overall median. Hardly seems like Lieberman is conservative to me – at least from a mainstream perspective. By the ADA’s standards he would be liberal – maybe moderate liberal (there are plenty of 100%’ers).
Look, if Dugger’s willing to admit the biggest victory for right-wingers on Tuesday will be the re-election of Joe Lieberman, I’m not going to rain on his parade. Good luck, Dugger!
As I’ve pointed out before, you mean conservative candidates are winning in conservative areas and liberal candidates are winning in liberal ones?
SHOCKING!!!
It’s because you guys have moved the center so far to the right that somehow Democrats who think we ought to have a rational strategy in Iraq, increase the minimum wage, and tax cuts for the middle class that you keep seeing the Dems as liiiiberal.
The bad thing about the GOP moving their party to the right has been the policy outcomes: insanely self destructive foreign policy, anti-middle-class/pro-corporate domestic policy, and creeping authoritarianism.
The flip side of that is that the Democrats, by default occupy the center much more naturally, and are therefore perfectly positioned to be America’s centrist majority party.
The republicans are going to “win” this election either way.
If the democrats win one or both houses, the republicans now have a scapegoat for anything they want in 2008. They will have a Speaker Pelosi, an impeached Alcee Hastings etc to hold up as examples to rile up the base.
If they don’t win, well, it will be a complete repudiation of all the “progressive” ideals. This is a mid-term election for a second term president who poll numbers are about as low as you can go.
But don’t ignore Dugger’s point either, or do so at your peril. The spoilers for the republicans are all very moderate democrats, and that does say something about the “progressive” agenda.
What peril, Pedro? How else could Democrats take the House except with a bunch of moderates? How else would progressive legislation get passed in a moderate-to-conservative nation?
I agree that conservatives do a lot better as the minority party, going negative 365 days a year. I know Rush likes it better that way. Hatred of liberals and Democrats is all that conservatism really has, anyway. Glad to see you so candid about it, Pedro.
dr pedro | Nov 3, 2006 11:52:51 AM
“But don’t ignore Dugger’s point either, or do so at your peril.”
Tee hee hee …. ya, we better listen to Dugger and dr pedro … LoL!
Remember Dugger and dr pedro being on the verbal warpath with anyone discussing soldiers demonstrating anything other than soldier-like behaviour in Iraq?
We heard little from them when evidence was revealed and soldiers were punished.
We heard nothing from them when Brian Doyle was arrested.
I LOVE their silence at every Republican fuck up and inch by inch grudging concession about potential Democratic achievements on Tuesday (with accompanying rationalization how it will ultimately benefit the Republicans).
I get it now, Pedro; the Regressives are losing next week on purpose to lay the groundwork for the 2008 Pres. election..
That’s friggin’ genius!
As one who dislikes the know-nothing, douchebag, racist, etc. Republicans as much as the next reality-based life form, I’ll believe it when I see it.
No duros, I am not that Machiavellian. The republicans lose because they stopped being republicans Dr.AGH I think sums it up nicely. Ultimately we are a “moderate-conservative” nation, and I would add, with a libertarian bent. True goldwater type republicans (as compared to the religious right)are the most closely aligned with the majority of this nation. The reason that republicans “going negative” works so well, is that most of the country disagrees with the progressive agenda, so pointing out the differences is extremely effective.
S read some of my earlier posts. I have been calling for the R’s to lose the house for weeks, and not grudgingly, I see it as a plus in ‘08
dr pedro | Nov 3, 2006 1:57:33 PM
“S read some of my earlier posts. I have been calling for the R’s to lose the house for weeks, and not grudgingly, I see it as a plus in ‘08″
LoL! You’ve been forced — over months — to change your point of view with every Republican fuck up. In January, your point of view was disdainful and dismissive of Democrats and the mid-term elections compared to your point of view today.
I just love these almost daily rationalizations:
“Republicans will lose because they weren’t REALLY Republicans…”
“Democrats will win with conservative values…”
“Democrats will win but Republicans REALLLY win because we will get back in 2008″.
Spin away my little chickadees.
factcheck,
Nevertheless. Those winning (and the inpower party tardiitonally loses midterm of second term in power) for the Dems are those that atlk and act conservative. A Reaganite in Va.; Ford in Tenn., one of the first to call Kerry on his military bashing. OW says its reds winning in Red States and Blues in Blue States – pretending that Joe Blue State Lieberman, officially excommunicated by the extremists, doesn’t exist.
Hey I do concede Democrats are likely to be the bigger winners Tuesday (wish it weren’t so), but I do not concede and I have seen no one be able to make the point that this is a victory for the hater wing of the party. Hell, Harold Ford is practically in the John Birch Society.
Jesus Christ, when the Tories won in 92 I don’t remember anyone rationalising it as “really” good for Labour as desperately as the right-wingers here are rationalising the GOP’s likely loss of Congress next week. You’re going to lose, live with it. Keep a little dignity, for the love of God. If you must comfort yourself, it looks like you’ll keep the Senate.
Pedro, goldwater conservatism may be your personal favorite flavor, but it is not the dominant one either in your party’s leadership or among the rank-and-file, even if it has the most well-articulated theoretical backing. The dominant conservatism in America today is pork-barrel Southern conservatism. They used to be Democrats, but now they own the GOP, buddy. Sorry to break the news.
And Iraq continues to be a success, right, Dugger?
Just to expand for a sec, Goldwater small government conservatism sounds great to everyone in the GOP, but somehow there never winds up being any constituency ANYWHERE for cutting the government. I’d argue that “true” conservatism is what we’ve gotten, Pedro: socially conservative (authoritarian, really) low taxes (esp. on the rich), kicking ass abroad ( regardless of the consequences), ethnically nativist, heavy government spending. Southern conservatism is national conservatism now.
“I have seen no one be able to make the point that this is a victory for the hater wing of the party. Hell, Harold Ford is practically in the John Birch Society.”
So many wrong points here. A) It’s clearly a repudiation of Bush’s Iraq policy, regardless of your labels.
B) Are you pro-Birch? I guarantee you that Ford will vote for national health insurance, should he win. He will vote to draw down from Iraq. He will vote to return the tax code to Clinton-levels. What exactly do you think progressive priorities are that he will deny us? Gay marriage? Department of Peace? Impeachment? Your caricature of liberals has confused you worse even than usual, Dugger.
The sword cuts both ways Dr AGH.
Both democrats and republicans have to play to their activist base. That is why presidential elections are so hosed up.
In the primary, you have activate your liberal/conservative party base to get the nomination. Then come the general election, you have to swing to the middle to gather in the independent/swing voter. Ollie has pointed it out too, and he is right…the republicans pander to the conservative/religious right, and then rarely come through on their big issues. The democrats pander to the hard liberal/minority and don’t come through on THEIR issues.
My kind of conservatism is simply based on a conservative foreign policy, a libertarian type social policy (not to the extreme of not wanting SOME poverty/safety net programs). Show me that politician and I think you can find a winner for ‘08. Hell, the democrats have even figured that out…look at Ford and Webb!
Yes, but I think the era of the Goldwater conservative died out sometime during Bush I.
maybe the goldwater republican POLITICIANS died out not the voters, but that is exactly why the R’s are getting trounced now (though admittedly, no where near as badly as the dems in ‘94)
“The democrats pander to the hard liberal/minority and don’t come through on THEIR issues.”
I disagree. Not that moderate democrats don’t perpetually disappoint liberals, but that over the long term, the liberals tend to carry the day on every issue eventually, and it doesn’t ever get rolled back.
“My kind of conservatism is simply based on a conservative foreign policy, a libertarian type social policy”
This is basically Washington’s elite consensus, traceable from Eisenhower through Clinton: aggressive foreign policy, socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
The problem is that you also decribed yourselve as libertarian, which I assume includes cutting the government. You and the Washington Post and the Economist may like that idea, but no group of voters actually agrees with that part of the formula beyond any abstract sense. So you get plenty of tax cuts but no spending cuts. And you’re left with something even less fiscally responsible than what you would have otherwise, not to mention being incredibly leveraged by the Chinese.
You can only judge an ideology by how it is practiced, Pedro. That’s what realism teaches us, allegedly a product of conservatism itself. And what it teaches us is that again and again, conservatism fucks over America on our basic interests. If conservatism’s constituents and representatives can’t be of any good to us in the real world, then throw it back in the garbage.
By the way, the problem is that the Southern voter, fundamentally, does not give a shit about fiscal conservatism. He wants pork, kicking foreigners’ asses, and social conservatism. And the GOP has to pander to him. So no constituency will actually vote for Goldwaterland, at least none in history. GOP thought that the Southern voter would vote for it, but it turned out southerners were just voting against “handouts for blacks.” The Southern strategy concealed the failure of Goldwaterism, but it’s becoming clearer now.
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