Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110009215" target="_blank">http://www.opinionjournal.com/ best/?id=110009215</a> >>Republicans deserved to lose. They arrived a dozen years ago promising reform and smaller government. They did deliver a very successful welfare reform law--but that was over a decade ago. What legislative accomplishments they have delivered since have mostly consisted in approving President Bush's initiatives, which is something, but far from the "revolution" they promised in 1994. Consider these results from a poll of voters in 12 swing GOP-held congressional districts, conducted by OnMessage Inc. (PDF): No, these results are not typographical errors: When asked which Party they believe would cut taxes for the middle-class 42% said the Democrats while only 29% chose the Republicans. When asked which Party will work toward reducing the deficit 47% chose the Democrats while only 22% chose the Republicans. Again, when asked who will keep government spending under control the Democrats held a 17 point edge (38% Democrats, 21% Republicans). Despite all this, voters in five of the districts elected or re-elected Republicans, vs. four districts for Democrats (three are still undecided as we write). While it's hard to conceive of Democrats as the party of frugality, Republicans have been spending like mad, while Democrats have lacked the power to do so, so there is a certain logic to preferring the Dems here. This is not to say every Republican who lost deserved it. We were especially sad to see Rick Santorum and Michael Steele go down to defeat. But as a party, the Republicans needed to lose sometime. And better this year than in 2004, when it would have meant President Kerry--a prospect that even the most diehard Bush-hater knows in his heart would have been catastrophic. It was not a referendum on Iraq. One of the most pro-Iraq lawmakers in Congress, Sen. Joe Lieberman, ran as an independent and trounced anti-Iraq Democratic nominee Ned Lamont. Meanwhile, of the five remaining Republican members of Congress who voted against Iraq's liberation, three lost: Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), Rep. John Hostettler (Ind.) and Rep. Jim Leach (Iowa). Only two anti-Iraq Republicans will return to the 110th Congress: Reps. Jimmy Duncan (Tenn.) and Ron Paul (Texas). The Associated Press reports that while "three-fourths of voters said corruption and scandal were important to their votes, . . . Iraq was important for just two-thirds." Both groups tended to favor Democrats. It was not a victory for the left. Lieberman's victory over Lamont should be sufficient to establish this, but also, as we noted last week, the Democrats nominated many moderates for Congress, including Heath Shuler in North Carolina and Bob Casey and Chris Carney in Pennsylvania. (Carney, who beat Rep. Don Sherwood, got an endorsement from Richard Perle at a cocktail party we attended last month.) In 1994 Republicans won Congress by nominating strong conservative candidates in districts long held by the other party. In 2006 Democrats did the same. It will be interesting to watch how Speaker Pelosi mediates between her ultraliberal committee chairman and the moderate freshmen to whom they owe their jobs. It seems clear America is a center-right country, rather than a center-left one--though the Northeast is an exception. In fact, with Reps. Jeb Bradley and Charles Bass of New Hampshire and Nancy Johnson of Connecticut going down to defeat, and the Nutmeg State's Rob Simmons trailing by 170 votes with a recount pending, Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut may soon be the only GOP House member in all of New England. Victory may prove cathartic for the Angry Left. America's liberal left, and the Democratic Party more broadly, has been in an unhealthy emotional state ever since Bill Clinton's impeachment eight years ago. The 2000 election controversy made things much worse for them, and led them to respond to their string of election losses since by lashing out and claiming the elections were stolen. No one on the left will claim the 2006 election was stolen. They won fair and square, partly because of GOP complacency and partly because the Democrats got smart about candidate recruitment. Of course, if the Angry Left calms down, it'll be a mixed blessing for this column, which has gotten an enormous amount of mileage out of it. But at least we still have John Kerry to kick around, and now he almost certainly is running for office--either president or, more likely, re-election in 2008.<<
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>It was not a referendum on Iraq.<< followed by ... >>Iraq was important for just two-thirds<< Okay. It wasn't a referendum on Iraq, except TWO THIRDS of voters? LOL Denial is a wonderful thing. Of course this was a referendum about Iraq. We the People aren't stupid. We see that there needs to be a new direction in Iraq, and apparently, at long last, the White House understands this with giving Rumsfeld the boot.
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy <Denial is a wonderful thing.> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVoLONYnJBM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =iVoLONYnJBM</a>
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>When asked which Party they believe would cut taxes for the middle-class 42% said the Democrats while only 29% chose the Republicans.<< I think a lot of people got tired of the "sizzling" economy benefiting only the rich. This wasn't talked about a lot, but I think that it was in the back of a lot white collar folks minds.
Originally Posted By Shooba "It was not a referendum on Iraq." "It was not a victory for the left." Bitter much? Even George Bush acknowledged this result as a "thumping". But, gotta spin away anyway. Takes a pretty poor loser to post this stuff...
Originally Posted By jonvn And instead of taking a lesson from it, we hear a lot of rank bitterness. At least President Bush is making noise like he is going to do what he can to move forward, given the results of the election. He actually showed himself to be pretty decent at his last press conference. Maybe what he needed all along was someone to oppose him with some power, so he didn't just go whole hog all the time. Without meaningful opposing viewpoints, you can really wander off into murky territory and not be able to come back. This is what happened with Arnold this last year with those referendums. He got a big kick in the seat, and he did a lot to move to where the people wanted him. Maybe this will happen to Bush in his last two years of office, and he'll actually accomplish something for the people of this nation. Maybe he won't go down as the single worst President we've ever had after all. That's my hope. Let's see what he does.
Originally Posted By Shooba Bush has always said he'd be a uniter, not a divider. I don't sense that he lived up to that ideal and I doubt much will change. Of course, it's probable that it was Rove and company who were really calling the shots, and now that they don't have a rubber stamp house or senate, maybe Bush can be the president he allegedly wanted to be.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer I really hope so, Shooba. And I hope those looking to run in 2008 see how poisonous Karl Rove truly is.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Youhave to wonder why Rove has survived since Tuesday's drubbing. He's apparently the one who gave Bush the impression that they would keep their majorities in both houses, albeit with some loss of seats. It's also Rove's divisive nature and advice that has contributed gretaly to the partisanship the country rejected on Tuesday. All Dems are scum, if you disagree with the President you want the terrorists to win, you're unpatriotic, you're a traitor, all that bullcrap. If Bush truly wants to work with the Dems, he needs to jettison the poison from his office that is Rove.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder And DB's posted article is of course more bull excretement. Hey DB, quit being a coward and come out from behind these articles. If you have an opinion, speak up! Hello???? Beuller????? If the Dems have indeed offered nothing, then the Reps need to examine their own words and actions before they utter such nonsense. Let's assume that's true. What that means is the Reps have been so bad the electorate has told them that this is one of the times when they are NOT better than nothing. In other word, we'd rather have no leadership if it means having THEIR leadership. Nothingness beat them. They should think about that.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009216" target="_blank">http://www.opinionjournal.com/ editorial/feature.html?id=110009216</a> >>Democrats were able to exploit this frustration even without offering much of their own agenda. While this worked in the campaign, it leaves in doubt how Democrats will use their new power. In the minority, they could assail "George Bush's war" and threaten impeachment to mobilize their base without fear of being held responsible. Now they will have to govern. For Ms. Pelosi, this will mean deciding how much deference to give to the Great Society liberals who will soon run most House committees. Henry Waxman, David Obey, Pete Stark, Ed Markey, John Conyers, Barney Frank: These are sons of the Sixties who helped drive the Carter and Clinton Presidencies off a cliff. They represent the soul of the Democratic House but not the desires of most voters in the 15 seats or so that provided their margin of victory on Tuesday. To sustain their majority in 2008 and beyond, Democrats will have to hold such seats as those won in eastern Pennsylvania by pro-military veterans Admiral Joe Sestak and Chris Carney, or in North Carolina by pro-life, anti-gun control Heath Shuler. We doubt voters in those seats chose Democrats with a goal of "censuring" Mr. Bush, much less impeaching him, or because they want a tax increase or an unseemly retreat from Iraq. Flooding the Beltway with subpoenas and partisan hearings may be cathartic for the Bush-hating left, but it won't send a signal that Democrats are different from the DeLay Republicans. If Ms. Pelosi sides with the antiwar Jack Murtha against Maryland's moderate Steny Hoyer in the race for House Majority Leader, Republicans will be overjoyed at this signal that the old liberals are back in charge. In the Senate, probable Majority Leader Harry Reid faces a comparable choice. His predecessor, Tom Daschle, lost the majority and later his own seat in large part because he played the role of obstructionist, especially on judges. Democrats might note that they gained Senate seats this year after having confirmed two Supreme Court Justices and taking judges off the table as a dominant election issue. At the very least, immigration and education are two areas where Democrats should be able to find common ground with Mr. Bush. The biggest question mark, and responsibility, for Democrats is on Iraq and the war on terror. They could do themselves and the country much good by working with Mr. Bush on a strategy toward achieving victory in Iraq as well as against al Qaeda. This means more than bromides about a "phased withdrawal" of troops next year, which won't encourage Iraq's militias to disarm; and it means more than Mr. Murtha's "redeployment" to Okinawa or somewhere else where the world would see that the U.S. has given up on Iraq. The Democrats could be most constructive by taking up the call of Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain to do whatever it takes to win in Iraq. If this means more troops, Iraqi or American, they should call for them. And if it means spending more to build a larger American military in this era of the global terrorist threat, they should do that too. This would not sit well with many on the antiwar left, but then Ned Lamont lost to Mr. Lieberman once their contest moved to an electorate larger than the Democratic primaries. In Tuesday's exit polls, for all of their other woes, Republicans still had an advantage over Democrats of seven percentage points as the party more likely to keep the country safer from terrorism. Since this threat isn't going away, Democrats won't help their image going into 2008 by opposing warrantless wiretaps against al Qaeda or the rest of the antiwar agenda. They would be smarter to make themselves partners in giving institutional permanence to Mr. Bush's best post-9/11 policies. All told, the Republicans deserved the electoral drubbing they received. Democrats will now have to prove they deserved the majority that GOP failure has handed them. <<
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder The irony here is palpable. Rolling on the floor laughing my butt off too.
Originally Posted By jonvn "Hey DB, quit being a coward and come out from behind these articles." How long have you been around? I know you know that this is what he has done for years. Previously, it was about Disney being a foul stench hole, particularly DCA. He would quote out of context, and give a very one sided and slanted view of things. But that was OK, then, because a lot of people here and at certain other websites agreed with that rather lopsided viewpoint. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and the tactic is laid bare. And I am finding it very amusing when some folks don't like what he is doing. "the Reps have been so bad the electorate has told them that this is one of the times when they are NOT better than nothing. In other word, we'd rather have no leadership if it means having THEIR leadership." I think that the public feels someone else would do a better job, and they only have one other real choice.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "How long have you been around?" Too long, and I know all about him.
Originally Posted By DAR You DB an opinion of your own would be usefull once in awhile. <<It's also Rove's divisive nature and advice that has contributed gretaly to the partisanship the country rejected on Tuesday. All Dems are scum, if you disagree with the President you want the terrorists to win, you're unpatriotic, you're a traitor, all that bullcrap. If Bush truly wants to work with the Dems, he needs to jettison the poison from his office that is Rove>> I agree that Rove's time has come. But let's not act like the Democrats were the shinning knights these last six years. They're the pot in the conversation with the kettle.
Originally Posted By gadzuux From DBs link - >> For Ms. Pelosi, this will mean deciding how much deference to give to the Great Society liberals who will soon run most House committees ... These are sons of the Sixties who helped drive the Carter and Clinton Presidencies off a cliff. << This is deliberately insulting. We're being damned not for any political belief or action, but as being "sons of the sixties" - as if they're not. And I take exception to the reference of "driving the clinton presidency off a cliff". To this very day, I'll stack the clinton terms against reagan, bush 1, or bush 2 - any of `em. But hey - I guess we should cut some slack to the WSJ editors - they're having a bad week.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>we should cut some slack to the WSJ editors - they're having a bad week.<< For some reason, the image of the Wicked Witch melting springs to mind, doesn't it?
Originally Posted By fkurucz ^^^Its all show. The Dems are just as much in the pockets of the Globalists as any Neo-Con. I also seem to recall the WSJ doing cartwheels during the Clinton Dot-Com boom.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>I also seem to recall the WSJ doing cartwheels during the Clinton Dot-Com boom.<< I hated that. It made the coupons go all over the place.
