Reactions to story from Daily Kos: State of the Nation

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  West Virginia Results, Media Spin and Missing a Key Point

  http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5761
  71 days ago in Open Left · Authority: 1,669

  Hillary Clinton won West Virginia by 67-26 margin, about what recent polls predicted. Certainly, every state counts. But context matters too. Here's how the big outlets are playing it this morning: CNN: Clinton crushes Obama After enduring a week of
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  A New Book Opportunity

  http://www.tondeestavern.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1534
  71 days ago in Tondee's Tavern: Toasting Politics in the Peach State · Authority: 102

  I'm sure Zell is writing away as we speak. A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Republican.
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  The Death of the Permanent Republican Majority - Political Opinion

  http://www.netnewspublisher.com/the-death-of-the-permanent-r...
  67 days ago in Net News Publisher for World News, Headlines, Breaking News · Authority: 212

  Well, that Permanent Majority sure didn’t last long. Tuesday’s special election in Mississippi, which yielded an eight-point victory for a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Republican district, has signaled to all observers what we’ve known, or at least hoped for, for years; Republicans are doomed. This has been the case for quite some time-the 2006 elections certainly seemed to indicate serious trouble for the Republican Party-but Mississippi pulled the curtain on the current sad state of the GOP. In the aftermath of Travis Childers’ election, it has become impossible to ignore or deny the fact that the Republican Party is on the verge of disaster. The GOP had absolutely no legitimate excuses for losing this election, as DavidNYC wrote on Wednesday. They had a decent candidate (in their fashion), running in a strongly red district, they spent vats of money, used all kinds of popular surrogates which we couldn’t match, and engaged in the same tired old “Liberals are EVIL!” scarecrowery that they’ve practiced for twenty years. None of it worked, apparently. Not only did they lose the seat, they got beaten quite badly. They tried everything to hang on to a seat that should never have been competitive in the first place, and they failed in grand fashion. It is the perfect indicator that the Republican brand is in historically dire straits-they’re in the worst position they have seen since 1974, perhaps since 1964, perhaps since 1932- and the nation is poised for a genuine Democratic ascendancy. And everybody knows it. The traditional media has noticed; indeed, as as DemFromCT notes, they can’t get enough of this new narrative about the diseased Republican Party. And the Republican Party has most definitely noticed. NRCC Chairman Tom Cole, who will presumably take the brunt of the blame for GOP losses this fall, commented “I think obviously when you lose three of these in a row you have to go beyond campaign tactics,” Cole said, adding that it brings up the question: “Is there something wrong with your product?” This is a rather remarkable statement, considering that just a few short years ago, Republicans truly believed that this “product” would enable them to build a Permanent Republican Majority, ultimately restricting Democrats to the status of a regional party. Cole is far from alone in noting the grand failure of selling traditional Republicanism. Rep. Mark Kirk, a moderate representing a Democratic-leaning district (whose reelection bid is in serious trouble), feels the same way. The GOP’s loss in Mississippi on Tuesday underscored for many Republicans that the party’s old playbook — one that relies heavily on branding Democrats as liberal tax-raisers, rallying around social issues such as abortion and guns, and using the president and vice president as campaign surrogates — isn’t working any more. “The playbook hasn’t worked in my district ever,” said Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who has been pushing his party to adopt an agenda geared toward more moderate suburban voters for the past three years. “The politics of the 1980s when that playbook was written is out of date.” Even rock-ribbed conservatives, like rising GOP star Eric Cantor, understand the party’s need to rebrand itself. Cantor acknowledged that efforts to brand a candidate as “too liberal” or “too out of sync” won’t cut it with voters. “What does work, though, is a realization that the paradigm has been shifted,” Cantor said. “This country is tired of excuses and doesn’t want to hear about ‘too liberal’ or ‘too this’ or ‘too that.’ What they want to hear is solutions.” The paradigm has shifted, indeed. We are entering a new era in American politics, and the Republicans have to figure out how to live in it. Their old ideas, old tactics, and stale brand are hopelessly out of place. Republican Rep. Tom Davis, one of the better strategic minds in the GOP, has gone so far as to raise the spectre of a permanent GOP minority: Don’t just put a new wrapper on the product and hire a new sales crew.  Let’s revamp, consistent with our principles and remember that this election is about independent voters.  Even if we get every Republican out to vote, we lose without Independents.  Forget the Democrats.  They’ve been waiting to get back since the Florida recount.  It’s all about the Independents, or we drop to a 170-180 seat permanent minority.  Yes, we’ll be comfortable in our caucus, but we’ll be irrelevant for the next decade. It’s particularly noteworthy that during their 12-year reign in Congress, from 1994 to 2006, the Republicans were never able to make the Democrats into a “170 or 180 –seat permanent minority”. If the Democratic Party was indeed at its lowest ebb during the Bush administration, we’re actually in pretty good shape indeed. So the GOP looks to John McCain as their savior now…a man whose entire electoral viability is centered around being seen as a “maverick”, an atypical Republican. The rise of McCain as their champion is not without irony, since the 71-year-old Arizona senator has quarreled with his own party for years on issues as diverse as immigration, campaign finance reform and global warming. But it is precisely that independent streak that is drawing Republicans to his coattails, hoping he can cleanse them of the stain of gridlocked Washington. Eric Cantor, Republican chief deputy whip in the House of Representatives, told reporters that the McCain brand was healthier than that of his party. “John McCain is a demonstrated vote getter among independents, and his message and what he will be able to do in this election is extremely important.” Frankly, the only chance John McCain has in this election is to keep selling the nonsense that he isn’t a normal Republican (and it is nonsense)…yet the party establishment is looking to him to help avoid disastrous downticket losses. McCain’s job is to save the party…by running away from the party. The Republican brand is so toxic, at this point, that the only chance for GOP success is to eschew the brand of their own party label. So, what the hell happened to that Permanent Majority? As DemFromCT wrote this morning, the true beauty of the special elections in Mississippi and Louisiana is that the Republican Party, the folks who once had designs on a Permanent Majority which would relegate us forever to the status of a regional party, have ultimately succeeded in transforming themselves into a regional party. Their own hubristic eagerness to demonize anything and everything Democratic has ultimately backfired; it is the Republican party which is the extremist party now, and the Democratic party which is the coalition party. Chris Cillizza breaks down the recent AB/WaPo poll: Not surprisingly, Obama holds his largest lead over McCain (18 points) in the Northeast — an area that has become increasingly dominated by Democrats in recent elections. But, Obama also holds a lead in the traditional battleground area of the Midwest — where Obama takes 54 percent to McCain’s 41 percent — and in the Republican-leaning territory of the West where Obama holds a double-digit lead at the moment. And, even in the South, where Republicans have dominated at the federal level for much of the past four decades, Obama is competitive; McCain takes 49 percent to 45 percent for the Illinois senator. While McCain trails by double digits in three of the four regions of the country, he actually far over performs his own party’s showing in the Post poll. Asked which party they trusted to “do a better job of coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years,” voters across the country opted for Democrats by wide margins. In the Northeast, Democrats outpaced Republicans by 29 points while the margin was 26 points in the Midwest. The news wasn’t much better for Republicans in the West (Democrats +18) or the South (Democrats +15). It is the Democratic party which is making inroads into the West and South, while the Republicans have now failed to hold seats in successive special elections deep within the heart of their Southern stronghold. Even rural voters, long part of the GOP base, are abandoning the party: Less than six months from the November election, Sen. John McCain is tied with Sen. Hillary Clinton among rural voters in battleground states while the Arizona Republican holds a nine point lead over Sen. Barack Obama. Republican extremism has driven away a good percentage of the voters who gave them their narrow victories over the past 15 years. It’s easy to say that they should moderate their image going forward, and that probably is what they should do. Unfortunately, they’re hamstrung by their base. Many things have gone wrong for Bush, but the underlying problem is his relationship to the constituency that elected him. Bush’s debt to his big donors and to religious conservatives has boxed him in and pitted him against the national consensus on various issues. His extremism is undermining Rove’s realignment. The problem has become clear with Bush’s difficulties in filling Sandra Day O’Connor’s slot on the Supreme Court. The Harriet Miers nomination was an attempt to satisfy both the militant conservative base and the eternally moderate American electorate. With the Alito nomination, Bush has acknowledged that splitting this difference is impossible. Faced with a choice, he has chosen, once again, to dance with the ones who brought him. But by appointing a superconservative, Bush risks propelling his increasingly beleaguered administration even further toward the right-hand margin—a place where his party cannot win future national elections. The Republicans are in thrall to their hard-core right wing base, the Norquists and Dobsons of the world, and this prevents them from recapturing the political center, as DHinMI wrote in his piece on Tom Davis memo. Ironically, Davis’ own U.S. Senate bid was thwarted by the right wing of the Virginia Republican Party, who apparently preferred nominating the weak but reliably “conservative” Jim Gilmore to one of their smartest and wisest strategists. Since the 1990’s, the Republicans have been willing hostages to their base.  Republican office holders are unwilling to go against their base, because they know they will be attacked by their base, and quite possibly targeted by fundie groups and Club for Growth, and most likely draw an extremist primary opponent (like the ones who’ve defeated Republican incumbent moderates Wayne Gilchrest and Joe Schwarz, and who blocked Davis’ own path to the Republican nomination for Senate in Virginia). I don’t have any sympathy for the Republicans.  But I do believe it must be horrible knowing that if they don’t eschew the extreme right positions they’ve adopted over the years, they will get slaughtered in the general election, but breaking from the extreme right means they will not make it through party primaries. The GOP has fallen this far for a number of reasons, but chief among them is their failure to adequately court middle-class voters who aren’t completely hostile to science. Unfortunately for them, that comprises an incredibly large swath of the country. For some time, they were able to win enough of these voters to hold a majority in Congress and eke out two incredibly narrow presidential-election victories, but they were never included in the coalition. It’s easy to forget that the Democratic Party was already experiencing a resurgence prior to September 11, albeit not on the grand scale we’re seeing now. Bush, of course, lost the popular vote in 2000, an election which saw the Democratic Party regain a majority in the U.S. Senate. Democrats also managed to gain seats in the House in three successive elections after the 1994 debacle. The Republican seizure of the national security issue after 9/11 bought them time as a party, but it was hardly a permanent fix. For the GOP to hold national-security voters, two things were necessary; first, the issue had to remain the top voter priority, and second, the Republicans had to actually maintain their credibility on it (which, of course, they did not). In all honesty, it’s likely that Republican dominance would have fallen even earlier if they hadn’t managed to seize the national-security issue after 9/11. Their mistake, however, was believing that national security alone would keep middle-class voters in their column. Unfortunately for them, their credibility on national security is spent, thanks in large part to the Iraq fiasco. Now, in increasing numbers, these voters are finding a home in the Democratic Party. This is not because the party has moved appreciably to the center. Rather, it has become the party of the left and the center, the party for everyone who isn’t either insanely wealthy or part of the religious right. Another component of the Republican fall is their eagerness to practice the worst kind of divisive regional politics. We’ve seen it in their most recent ads in Louisiana and Mississippi, assailing “San Francisco” liberal values. Have you ever seen a Democratic ad criticizing “Alabama values?” Then there’s Dick Armey’s foul gem from 2004, assailing my hometown: The state is also a recurring villain among Republicans, a view distilled in a wisecrack by a former House majority leader, Dick Armey of Texas, when Democrats announced that their 2004 convention would be held in Boston. “If I were a Democrat,” Armey said, “I would feel a heck of a lot more comfortable in Boston than, say, America.” Strange, but I can’t remember Ted Kennedy ever saying that Dallas isn’t part of America. We don’t do that sort of thing. Republicans do. Creating this us-and-them regional dynamic no doubt helped the Republicans lock down their Southern base, but it also prevented them from expanding into other regions of the country. It’s instructive that the party which wished to create a permanent majority thought it would be a good idea to do so by writing off entire sections of the country, and it’s no wonder that Chris Shays is the last Republican representative from New England. I think the Republican dream of a permanent majority was always hubris. Their coalition was never that broad, and never that strong, even when they managed to win. And they didn’t do a damned thing to expand beyond that coalition, to win new voters into their country by attempting to find common ground with centrists. At the height of Republican supremacy, 59 million Americans voted for John Kerry in 2004, and the GOP made no effort to court any of those voters into joining them. One final note on the late Republican Permanent Majority. Karl Rove sought to be the new Mark Hanna, William McKinley’s political strategist in the 1896 presidential election. Hanna’s great achievement was to craft a Republican coalition in 1896 which reduced Democrats to being a Southern regional party, a status they enjoyed essentially until 1932. Rove and his partners in crime have essentially done the same thing as Hanna did…for the Democratic Party. Source Daily Kos Net News Publisher Similar Posts:More Democratic Gains in PA Rivals Criticize Obama for Comments on ‘Small Town’ Voters Yesterday’s Other Primary - Political Opinion
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  The Death of the Permanent Republican Majority

  http://www.bloggersforchange.com/?p=2184
  67 days ago in Bloggers For Change | Colabrative Works for Change in Politics · Authority: 7

  Well, that Permanent Majority sure didn’t last long. Tuesday’s special election in Mississippi, which yielded an eight-point victory for a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Republican district, has signaled to all observers what we’ve known, or at least hoped for, for years; Republicans are doomed. This has been the case for quite some time-the 2006 elections certainly seemed to indicate serious trouble for the Republican Party-but Mississippi pulled the curtain on the current sad state of the GOP. In the aftermath of Travis Childers’ election, it has become impossible to ignore or deny the fact that the Republican Party is on the verge of disaster. The GOP had absolutely no legitimate excuses for losing this election, as DavidNYC wrote on Wednesday. They had a decent candidate (in their fashion), running in a strongly red district, they spent vats of money, used all kinds of popular surrogates which we couldn’t match, and engaged in the same tired old "Liberals are EVIL!" scarecrowery that they've practiced for twenty years. None of it worked, apparently. Not only did they lose the seat, they got beaten quite badly. They tried everything to hang on to a seat that should never have been competitive in the first place, and they failed in grand fashion. It is the perfect indicator that the Republican brand is in historically dire straits-they’re in the worst position they have seen since 1974, perhaps since 1964, perhaps since 1932- and the nation is poised for a genuine Democratic ascendancy. And everybody knows it. The traditional media has noticed; indeed, as as DemFromCT notes, they can’t get enough of this new narrative about the diseased Republican Party. And the Republican Party has most definitely noticed. NRCC Chairman Tom Cole, who will presumably take the brunt of the blame for GOP losses this fall, commented "I think obviously when you lose three of these in a row you have to go beyond campaign tactics," Cole said, adding that it brings up the question: "Is there something wrong with your product?" This is a rather remarkable statement, considering that just a few short years ago, Republicans truly believed that this "product" would enable them to build a Permanent Republican Majority, ultimately restricting Democrats to the status of a regional party. Cole is far from alone in noting the grand failure of selling traditional Republicanism. Rep. Mark Kirk, a moderate representing a Democratic-leaning district (whose reelection bid is in serious trouble), feels the same way. The GOP’s loss in Mississippi on Tuesday underscored for many Republicans that the party’s old playbook — one that relies heavily on branding Democrats as liberal tax-raisers, rallying around social issues such as abortion and guns, and using the president and vice president as campaign surrogates — isn’t working any more. "The playbook hasn’t worked in my district ever," said Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who has been pushing his party to adopt an agenda geared toward more moderate suburban voters for the past three years. "The politics of the 1980s when that playbook was written is out of date." Even rock-ribbed conservatives, like rising GOP star Eric Cantor, understand the party’s need to rebrand itself. Cantor acknowledged that efforts to brand a candidate as "too liberal" or "too out of sync" won’t cut it with voters. "What does work, though, is a realization that the paradigm has been shifted," Cantor said. "This country is tired of excuses and doesn’t want to hear about ‘too liberal’ or ‘too this’ or ‘too that.’ What they want to hear is solutions." The paradigm has shifted, indeed. We are entering a new era in American politics, and the Republicans have to figure out how to live in it. Their old ideas, old tactics, and stale brand are hopelessly out of place. Republican Rep. Tom Davis, one of the better strategic minds in the GOP, has gone so far as to raise the spectre of a permanent GOP minority: Don’t just put a new wrapper on the product and hire a new sales crew. Let’s revamp, consistent with our principles and remember that this election is about independent voters. Even if we get every Republican out to vote, we lose without Independents. Forget the Democrats. They’ve been waiting to get back since the Florida recount. It’s all about the Independents, or we drop to a 170-180 seat permanent minority. Yes, we’ll be comfortable in our caucus, but we’ll be irrelevant for the next decade. It’s particularly noteworthy that during their 12-year reign in Congress, from 1994 to 2006, the Republicans were never able to make the Democrats into a "170 or 180 –seat permanent minority". If the Democratic Party was indeed at its lowest ebb during the Bush administration, we’re actually in pretty good shape indeed. So the GOP looks to John McCain as their savior now...a man whose entire electoral viability is centered around being seen as a "maverick", an atypical Republican. The rise of McCain as their champion is not without irony, since the 71-year-old Arizona senator has quarreled with his own party for years on issues as diverse as immigration, campaign finance reform and global warming. But it is precisely that independent streak that is drawing Republicans to his coattails, hoping he can cleanse them of the stain of gridlocked Washington. Eric Cantor, Republican chief deputy whip in the House of Representatives, told reporters that the McCain brand was healthier than that of his party. "John McCain is a demonstrated vote getter among independents, and his message and what he will be able to do in this election is extremely important." Frankly, the only chance John McCain has in this election is to keep selling the nonsense that he isn’t a normal Republican (and it is nonsense)...yet the party establishment is looking to him to help avoid disastrous downticket losses. McCain's job is to save the party...by running away from the party. The Republican brand is so toxic, at this point, that the only chance for GOP success is to eschew the brand of their own party label. So, what the hell happened to that Permanent Majority? As DemFromCT wrote this morning, the true beauty of the special elections in Mississippi and Louisiana is that the Republican Party, the folks who once had designs on a Permanent Majority which would relegate us forever to the status of a regional party, have ultimately succeeded in transforming themselves into a regional party. Their own hubristic eagerness to demonize anything and everything Democratic has ultimately backfired; it is the Republican party which is the extremist party now, and the Democratic party which is the coalition party. Chris Cillizza breaks down the recent AB/WaPo poll: Not surprisingly, Obama holds his largest lead over McCain (18 points) in the Northeast -- an area that has become increasingly dominated by Democrats in recent elections. But, Obama also holds a lead in the traditional battleground area of the Midwest -- where Obama takes 54 percent to McCain's 41 percent -- and in the Republican-leaning territory of the West where Obama holds a double-digit lead at the moment. And, even in the South, where Republicans have dominated at the federal level for much of the past four decades, Obama is competitive; McCain takes 49 percent to 45 percent for the Illinois senator. While McCain trails by double digits in three of the four regions of the country, he actually far over performs his own party's showing in the Post poll. Asked which party they trusted to "do a better job of coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years," voters across the country opted for Democrats by wide margins. In the Northeast, Democrats outpaced Republicans by 29 points while the margin was 26 points in the Midwest. The news wasn't much better for Republicans in the West (Democrats +18) or the South (Democrats +15). It is the Democratic party which is making inroads into the West and South, while the Republicans have now failed to hold seats in successive special elections deep within the heart of their Southern stronghold. Even rural voters, long part of the GOP base, are abandon the party: Less than six months from the November election, Sen. John McCain is tied with Sen. Hillary Clinton among rural voters in battleground states while the Arizona Republican holds a nine point lead over Sen. Barack Obama. Republican extremism has driven away a good percentage of the voters who gave them their narrow victories over the past 15 years. It’s easy to say that they should moderate their image going forward, and that probably is what they should do. Unfortunately, they’re hamstrung by their base. Many things have gone wrong for Bush, but the underlying problem is his relationship to the constituency that elected him. Bush's debt to his big donors and to religious conservatives has boxed him in and pitted him against the national consensus on various issues. His extremism is undermining Rove's realignment. The problem has become clear with Bush's difficulties in filling Sandra Day O'Connor's slot on the Supreme Court. The Harriet Miers nomination was an attempt to satisfy both the militant conservative base and the eternally moderate American electorate. With the Alito nomination, Bush has acknowledged that splitting this difference is impossible. Faced with a choice, he has chosen, once again, to dance with the ones who brought him. But by appointing a superconservative, Bush risks propelling his increasingly beleaguered administration even further toward the right-hand margin—a place where his party cannot win future national elections. The Republicans are in thrall to their hard-core right wing base, the Norquists and Dobsons of the world, and this prevents them from recapturing the political center, as DHinMI wrote in his piece on Tom Davis memo. Ironically, Davis’ own U.S. Senate bid was thwarted by the right wing of the Virginia Republican Party, who apparently preferred nominating the weak but reliably "conservative" Jim Gilmore to one of their smartest and wisest strategists. Since the 1990's, the Republicans have been willing hostages to their base. Republican office holders are unwilling to go against their base, because they know they will be attacked by their base, and quite possibly targeted by fundie groups and Club for Growth, and most likely draw an extremist primary opponent (like the ones who've defeated Republican incumbent moderates Wayne Gilchrest and Joe Schwarz, and who blocked Davis' own path to the Republican nomination for Senate in Virginia). I don't have any sympathy for the Republicans. But I do believe it must be horrible knowing that if they don't eschew the extreme right positions they've adopted over the years, they will get slaughtered in the general election, but breaking from the extreme right means they will not make it through party primaries. The GOP has fallen this far for a number of reasons, but chief among them is their failure to adequately court middle-class voters who aren’t completely hostile to science. Unfortunately for them, that comprises an incredibly large swath of the country. For some time, they were able to win enough of these voters to hold a majority in Congress and eke out two incredibly narrow presidential-election victories, but they were never included in the coalition. It’s easy to forget that the Democratic Party was already experiencing a resurgence prior to September 11, albeit not on the grand scale we’re seeing now. Bush, of course, lost the popular vote in 2000, an election which saw the Democratic Party regain a majority in the U.S. Senate. Democrats also managed to gain seats in the House in three successive elections after the 1994 debacle. The Republican seizure of the national security issue after 9/11 bought them time as a party, but it was hardly a permanent fix. For the GOP to hold national-security voters, two things were necessary; first, the issue had to remain the top voter priority, and second, the Republicans had to actually maintain their credibility on it (which, of course, they did not). In all honesty, it’s likely that Republican dominance would have fallen even earlier if they hadn’t managed to seize the national-security issue after 9/11. Their mistake, however, was believing that national security alone would keep middle-class voters in their column. Unfortunately for them, their credibility on national security is spent, thanks in large part to the Iraq fiasco. Now, in increasing numbers, these voters are finding a home in the Democratic Party. This is not because the party has moved appreciably to the center. Rather, it has become the party of the left and the center, the party for everyone who isn’t either insanely wealthy or part of the religious right. Another component of the Republican fall is their eagerness to practice the worst kind of divisive regional politics. We’ve seen it in their most recent ads in Louisiana and Mississippi, assailing "San Francisco" liberal values. Have you ever seen a Democratic ad criticizing "Alabama values?" Then there’s Dick Armey’s foul gem from 2004, assailing my hometown: The state is also a recurring villain among Republicans, a view distilled in a wisecrack by a former House majority leader, Dick Armey of Texas, when Democrats announced that their 2004 convention would be held in Boston. "If I were a Democrat," Armey said, "I would feel a heck of a lot more comfortable in Boston than, say, America." Strange, but I can't remember Ted Kennedy ever saying that Dallas isn't part of America. We don't do that sort of thing. Republicans do. Creating this us-and-them regional dynamic no doubt helped the Republicans lock down their Southern base, but it also prevented them from expanding into other regions of the country. It’s instructive that the party which wished to create a permanent majority thought it would be a good idea to do so by writing off entire sections of the country, and it’s no wonder that Chris Shays is the last Republican representative from New England. I think the Republican dream of a permanent majority was always hubris. Their coalition was never that broad, and never that strong, even when they managed to win. And they didn't do a damned thing to expand beyond that coalition, to win new voters into their country by attempting to find common ground with centrists. At the height of Republican supremacy, 59 million Americans voted for John Kerry in 2004, and the GOP made no effort to court any of those voters into joining them. One final note on the late Republican Permanent Majority. Karl Rove sought to be the new Mark Hanna, William McKinley’s political strategist in the 1896 presidential election. Hanna’s great achievement was to craft a Republican coalition in 1896 which reduced Democrats to being a Southern regional party, a status they enjoyed essentially until 1932. Rove and his partners in crime have essentially done the same thing as Hanna did...for the Democratic Party.
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  Nuvens negras sobre o Partido Republicano

  http://america2008.blogs.sapo.pt/14791.html
  71 days ago in América 2008 · No authority yet

  Para se ter uma ideia do descrédito e desânimo os 8 anos de Bush-Cheney-Rove lançaram sobre o Partido Republicano, e as dificuldades que isso lhes vai causar no Outono, basta observar este recente resultado eleitoral: In a major blow to national Republicans, a Mississippi congressional seat that once voted for President Bush by a twenty-five point margin elected a Democrat on Tuesday. Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers beat out Republican candidate Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, by a 54%-46% margin, a spread that several Republican strategists on Capitol Hill characterized as a startling wake-up call for a party in dire straits. Um candidato Democrata derrota o seu oponente Republicano, que se recandidatava ao lugar, por 8 pontos de diferença num estado fortemente conservador, onde Bush ganhou em 2004 por 25 pontos de diferença, onde os Republicanos gastaram quase 1 milhão de dólares em campanha, e que teve direito a uma visita de Dick Cheney. É razão suficiente para fazer tocar as sirenes de alarme no GOP (Nota: o partido Republicano é muitas vezes chamado de GOP, sigla de "Grand Old Party") E isto apesar de terem tentado usar a associação Obama-Wright num anúncio de ataque: Foi uma estratégia muito notada pelos media (e criticada por John McCain, embora referindo-se a um anúncio anterior), não só pela polémica (e atenção) que gerou, mas porque foi entendido como um teste da eficácia deste tipo de ataques contra Obama. O falhanço desta linha de ataque, num estado dos mais conservadores que há, é uma indicação muito clara que se não encontram outros argumentos, a campanha presidencial está em sérios sarilhos, assim como uma boa parte dos lugares no Congresso: The party's fundamental situation is terrible: Republicans are saddled with an enormously unpopular president, a war, a troubled economy and a Democratic opposition that's being energized by important constituent groups. Não admira que nos Republicanos, se vá instalando uma sensação de pânico. E no meio disto e para ajudar à festa, o presidente George W. Bush faz afirmações destas: I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal. Os sacrifícios que um presidente tem de fazer...
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  House and Senate Roundup 5/14

  http://www.bloggersforchange.com/?p=2035
  71 days ago in Bloggers For Change | Colabrative Works for Change in Politics · Authority: 7

  House Races MS-01: The most significant political news from yesterdaym, by far, was Democrat Travis Childers' commanding victory in the First District of Mississippi. There has already been a great deal of excellent commentary on this race, including outstanding pieces from BarbinMD, DemFromCT, DavidNYC, and another from DemFromCT. This is a devastating, crushing, soul-shattering loss for the Republican Party. They had no excuses to lose this race, yet they did, and they lost quite badly. Republican leadership should be absolutely terrified...and it seems they are. The terse Boehner is obviously pissed: "We’ve got to do a better job,’’ added Boehner, who said unspecified changes to the National Republican Congressional Committee would be on the agenda when GOP leaders meet later in the day. NRCC Chairman Tom Cole sounds like he's ready to clean out his desk: NRCC Chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma admitted he is on the hot seat. Asked if he might be replaced, Cole said, "Nobody’s talking to me about anything like that yet, but I said ‘yet.’’’ And one of his predecessors, the retiring Tom Davis, sounds like he can't wait to get the hell out: Republicans were downbeat after their conference meeting. Asked about the GOP mood, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III , R-Va., stomped his foot on the Capitol corridor floor. "This is the floor. We’re underneath the floor,’’ said Davis, a former NRCC chairman who is not seeking re-election. The Republican Party is at its lowest ebb in literally decades, perhaps since 1974. NJ-05: Democrat Dennis Shulman, popular among the netroots and waging a surprisingly strong challenge to GOP incumbent Scott Garrett, has released his first TV ad. Pretty cool stuff: CA-04: Former Republican Rep. Doug Ose, the moderate candidate in the GOP's hunt to fill the shoes of the disgraced John Doolittle, is throwing a boatload of his own money into the Republican primary, and with good reason; he faces off against a conservative icon in State Senator, perennial candidate, and 400-mile carpetbagger Tom McClintock. McClintock really is a legend among California righties, and has come close on multiple occasions to winning statewide office. It's difficult to say who would be a tougher opponent against Democratic candidate (and Blue Majority candidate) Charlie Brown, although I suspect it would be Ose. Regardless, the uglier their primary gets, the better off we'll be, so let's hope for plenty of continued fireworks. And feel free to help out Brown at the Blue Majority ActBlue page. WV-01: This is an R+5.7 district, but the Republicans can't find anybody-not even a token challenger-to run against Democrat Alan Mollohan. NY-13: Despite her friendship with already-declared candidate Domenic Recchia, State Senator Diane Savino is considering a bid for the seat, currently held by Republican Vino Vito Fossella. Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has to think about whether or not to back Fossella, the former city chair of his 2005 campaign, should he run again. I'm really not sure what's to think about, to be honest. NY-29: Howard Dean is in Rochester this week, on behalf of Blue Majority candidate Eric Massa. Since losing by just two points in 2006, Massa has done everything right; he's dominating the fundraising game, with more than 50% more on hand than his dispirited Republican opponent, "Shotgun Randy" Kuhl. MI-13: Democrat Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, representative of the solidly Democratic Detroit-based 13th, faces a two-headed primary challenge, from former State Rep. Mary Waters and State Senator Martha Scott. Scott, in particular, has a considerable political base in the district and could be a serious contender, particularly as Detroit politics are rather messy right now. Senate Races KY-Sen: With a week until the Kentucky primary, Democrat Greg Fischer hopes to pull out the upset victory over Bruce Lunsford, but Roll Call is skeptical: The clock is ticking down on Kentucky’s Senate Democratic primary race, and although businessman Greg Fischer has shown an ability to steadily pick up polling points in recent weeks, the gap may still be too wide for him to overtake health care executive Bruce Lunsford before Tuesday. Coming off his failed 2007 gubernatorial run, Lunsford entered the seven-way primary race in January with a clear name identification advantage over Fischer, a first-time candidate. Lunsford, who is personally very wealthy, also entered the race with the backing of national Democratic leaders. And though various polling numbers have shown Fisher gaining about 20 points on Lunsford over the past four weeks, a survey released Tuesday by the Lexington Herald-Leader showed Fischer was still trailing Lunsford, 43 percent to 23 percent. That poll of 500 likely Democratic voters was conducted May 7-9 and had a margin of error of 4 points. Best of luck to Fischer; it would be nice to see him pull this out. NE-Sen: Congratulations to Democratic nominee Scott Kleeb! He'll have his hands full taking on Mike Johanns, the Republican former governor, but we're lucky to have a candidate of whom we can be genuinely proud running the race. CO-Sen: Mark Udall is on the airwaves with his first ad: MS-Sen-B: Things have been awfully quiet in the Mississippi Senate Race as Democrat Ronnie Musgrove and Republican Roger Wicker prepare for their showdown. Last night's special election victory, though, has led to increased speculation about Musgrove's chances. The race has not been polled in months, but Musgrove was quite competitive when it was polled, even showing a considerable lead in one poll. Mississippi is roughly 37% black, the highest percentage in the nation. It's probably reasonable to assume that black turnout may be increased with an Obama candidacy. Travis Childers was able to win last night partly via his support from poor white voters-the kind of voters who, in the South, have gravitated toward the Republican party against their economic interests over the past several years. If Musgrove can repeat Childers' inroads into that demographic, and if black turnout really does increase as much as Obama fans hope it will, Musgrove has a legitimate shot at beating Wicker.
• 

  What others are saying …

  http://djournal9to5.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/what-others-are...
  71 days ago in DJournal.com 9 to 5 · Authority: 11

  Travis Childers proved Tuesday that a conservative Democrat can win a north Mississippi congressional seat, despite its label as “safe Republican” before the campaign went into high gear. The 1st District race got plenty of national media attention. Here is a sampling of what blogs and others are saying … The New York Times - Democrat Wins House Seat in Mississippi The Fix - Democrat Wins Mississippi Special Election Jim Wooten - Think Right, Move Right Mississippi first congressional district blog CottonMouth Blog Y’all Politics Red/Blue blog at clarionledger.com Dailykos.com Blog National Review blog - The Campaign Spot Time.com - The Republicans’ Election Scare
• 

  All signs point to a Republican meltdown in November.

  http://scottdiatribe.gluemeat.com/2008/05/14/all-signs-point...
  71 days ago in Scott’s DiaTribes: My personal opinions on social and political issues from a progressive standpoint. · Authority: 104

  There was a special election held in Mississippi last night to fill a seat in Congress. This seat is one that is in deeply conservative territory; it voted for George Bush to be president by a margin of 2-1 in 2004.  In this particular campaign, the Republicans tried to tar the Democratic candidate here with being a Barack Obama supporter, and more importantly, played up Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his remarks and tried to use that against him. The result? Not good - for the Republicans that is. They lost by an 8 point margin: For Republicans, Davis’ defeat is viewed as a possible preview for a widespread GOP thrashing in November, and it shows that trying to link local Democrats in conservative districts to Sen. Barack Obama and his former pastor was not a winning strategy. Now, some people seem to think that Obama will not be able to stand up to the Republican slime machine when it gets into gear, but recent polls show the Republicans face long odds at making that strategy work: The party’s fundamental situation is terrible: Republicans are saddled with an enormously unpopular president, a war, a troubled economy and a Democratic opposition that’s being energized by important constituent groups. An analysis of the recent ABC/Washington Post poll shows signs of the Republican’s being in deep trouble. Obama leads McCain in 3 of the 4 regions of the US and even is competitive with McCain in the South - a traditional Republican stronghold.  It also shows Dems are more trusted then Republicans to deal with the US’s problems - by wide margins. Another new poll out this morning shows Obama again beating McCain nationally. Combine that with the fact that McCain will be under what I think will be a very effective attack - calling him “McSame” - as in the same as Bush and his failed policies and the Republicans in general, as well as exposing him to the public that he’s not as much of a “maverick” Republican as he’s tried to project, and I think you’re going to see a Republican bloodbath at the polls. It is not a good year to be a Republican, and I can’t say I feel sorry for them. It can’t happen to a worse bunch (except perhaps Stephen Harper and his lot up here).
• 

  Tuesday Stuff

  http://liberaldoomsayer.blogspot.com/2008/05/tuesday-stuff_1...
  72 days ago in The Liberal Doomsayer · Authority: 93

  K.O. exposes more smoke and mirrors from the Bushco gang of crooks, particularly having to do with Iran... ...and I don't blame anyone for not laughing at this, but I thought I'd put it up anyway because I didn't know what else to do (the only gesture he could perform to honor the sacrifice of our troops was to stop playing golf??!!). Update 5/14: And he even lied about the golf (h/t Eschaton)... Here's something you may want to know about, Dubya (it has some big words, so someone had better read it to you); it's a Daily Kos post from diarist brownsox telling us that Dem Travis Childers defeated Repug Greg Davis for an open U.S. House seat in Mississippi (it was Roger Wicker's seat that he left to take over for Trent Lott in the U.S. Senate). Why does this matter? Well, the NRCC spent $1.3 million to try and keep it (to say nothing of the Freedom's Watch cretins, probably including Ed Snider - awww, bad luck on the Flyers tonight, Ed). And the Repugs still lost. Out of Mississippi's U.S. House reps, three of the four are now Dems, Dubya. We're talking about Mississippi, not Massachusetts. And the turnout was about 33 percent higher than usual for the election. And it was a runoff. The tidal wave is building, and it will hit with full force in November. And you guys are...going...to...get...wiped...out. And do you ever deserve it! Update again 5/14: Here's more.

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