The last three weeks

People keep waiting for Karl Rove to pull one last monkey out of his ass, one more trick. The problem is that the GOP's issues go beyond a simple electoral trick.

Why?

Because the GOP is on defense. When John Spencer was prompted to run against Hillary Clinton, he was promised millions. He got nothing. Nothing.

Remember how so many people promised that they were going to spend Hillary into the ground?

Never happened.

Mike DeWine is in deep shit for one reason, Ken Blackwell. While he has 20 percent of the black vote, his inability to get white voters has doomed the entire ticket. They aren't just going to not vote for him but the entire GOP team.

In Pennsylvania, Lynn Swann is doing the same for Rick Santorum, dragging the ticket down.

I will say this until I'm blue in the face, but Foley is a body blow. Unless Rove can prove Foley wasn't protected by the House leadership, then he's up shit creek.

Let me explain why the GOP is facing an electoral crisis. All the smart money, Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato and the rest are predicting a 1974-type electoral armageddon. Which I find suprising, but not impossible.

You can go to the strength of Democratic candidates, the war in Iraq, lingering resentment over Katrina, and that would all be overthinking.

Part of Karl Rove's mystique is that he has been one step of the opposition. He's defined the terms of the debate and set its terms.

Another way to see it is, he picked the battleground. He made the Dems attack him, over and over and when they failed, he came out swinging. As he won, his prowess grew. Think the summer campaign of the 1863 Army of Northern Virginia. While weak Union generals were batted around by Lee and Jackson, they were always off balance. When the ANV crossed into Pennslyvania, the rules suddenly changed. The Union picked the ground, the high, defensive ground, and let the Confederates attack. And then the weaknesses of the ANV were exposed and defeated.

Well, the GOP is where the Dems have been in the past, defending an unpopular president, with a scandal-ridden Congress. How'd that work for them?

All of their natural advantages have been stripped from them. Iraq and national defense is a disaster, their fundamentalist base is being told they've been hustled.

How serious are David Kuo's charges?

Imagine if Dems found out that the Clintons, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy were not only secret Klansmen, but had a private preserve where they hunted condemned black prisoners for sport and then ate the remains at a pagan feast.

Then multiply by two.

One of the qualities of believers is that they believe. The idea that someone used their belief systems and then denigrated them is deeply offensive to many people.

The Democrats are running on a simple platform: they fucked up. Bush can prattle on about a positive agenda, but all people can think about is their houses not selling, and a nest of perverts, real, child hunting perverts, in the halls of Congress.

The positions are switched. The Dems are unified and not savaging each other so that it matters. The GOP is at each other's throats, and now they're arguing about money. Bush has linked arm in arm with Hastert and lives in a fantasy land where people are voting on taxes. Real leadership would have had him announce his resignation after the election, and demanded an impartial investigation. Giving the appearance of action.

What they wouldn't have done is blame kids for being molested. They wouldn't have claimed it was a joke. They wouldn't have been stupid.

And stupid season for the GOP started with George Allen in September and hasn't ended.

One other point: Bush has been quoted as saying he couldn't believe people would elect the Democrats, that they had turned a corner.

Where have we heard that before?

Any takers?

"The Iraqi people voted against civil war when they went to the polls"

Bush's arrogance and refusal to see the obvious should be seen as the surest sign things are not going to go his way.

Bush thought Chalabi, then Allawi would be acceptable rulers of Iraq.

And he sticks by Denny Hastert.

Seems like a pattern to me

posted by Steve @ 3:31:00 AM