While all eyes were on the presidential campaign and the demise of New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D) last week, Republicans on Capitol Hill were suffering a run of bad news that could hold dire implications for the campaign season.
It started with the loss last weekend of the seat held for two decades by former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). It got worse when Republicans lost potentially strong challengers to Democratic senators in South Dakota and New Jersey, and failed to field anyone to oppose the reelection bid of Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.).
The latest blow came with the revelation that the former treasurer of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) had allegedly diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and possibly as much as $1 million -- from the organization's depleted coffers to his own bank accounts.
If Republicans needed any more evidence of how difficult this fall may be, the past week had it all, analysts said. The Illinois race demonstrated new levels of disaffection, the party's efforts to go on offense elsewhere were thwarted by recruiting failures, and the NRCC scandal will divert campaign resources and could frighten off badly needed contributors, they said.
"It's no mystery," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.). "You have a very unhappy electorate, which is no surprise, with oil at $108 a barrel, stocks down a few thousand points, a war in Iraq with no end in sight and a president who is still very, very unpopular. He's just killed the Republican brand."
Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan analyst of congressional politics, said: "The math is against them. The environment is against them. The money is against them. This is one of those cycles that if you're a Republican strategist, you just want to go into the bomb shelter."... [emphasis added]
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There has not been a more perfect opportunity for Democrats to sweep the GOP from power, since the policies of GOP brought us the last depression. We have everything going for us. The GOP is ready to go down for the count, and except for their most rabid ideologues, even they know it. Only one question remains. Will Democrats take advantage of the opportunity, or will we squander it with squabbling and infighting?
I have an email account attached to my profile, which I check daily, but use for no other purpose other than to give people who read here a way to contact me. Like all public email accounts, I get a daily barrage of "do you want a bigger..." ads, but in the last couple weeks, I have been receiving emails from people, whom I do not know, asking me to post smear articles against either Clinton or Obama with links of dubious quality. Almost every day I see Clinton smears on Obama blogs and Obama smears on Clinton blogs. All this intramural negativity sickens me.
Wake up, people! One of these two is going to be the Democratic candidate for President! Neither is perfect. Both, like all politicians, have their gray areas. I'm not telling anyone not to wholeheartedly support the candidate of your choice. By all means do! But please express that support in terms of the positive things about your candidate. Let the smears and the name calling come to an end. Whoever emerges as the nominee needs all our support not only to win the general, but also to develop coattails sufficiently long to elect so many Democrats to the House and Senate that the GOP will be a virtual non-entity.
Isn't removing the GOP from power a sufficiently worthy goal to unite, even if it is not behind the candidate of your choice?
14 opinions:
Well said. The goopers have given us everything on a silver platter. Their policies are toxic to this nation, and this must be KNOWN and I'm not sure it's ingrained enough as it should be. McCain will only be another Bush.
Your point is the bottom line. I don't like this infighting. IT is what is turning me off right now. November is a long time from now, but all this primary mess makes it seem even further away.
I'd like to say I'm taking a vacation for a bit, but my primary is coming up on May 6. I'll be out there working for my candidate. What I like most about the organizational meetings I've attended is how showing respect and not ridiculing the other candidate is stressed. Wish this attitude were more prevelant elsewhere.
Just as sickening as the Dems' self defeating infighting is the media's fawning over McCain. He will get swarms of valuable positive press for his "foreign policy experience" tour. All while we see the stupidity of the dems circular firing squad.
It's a devastating combination.
If both Hillary and Obama would attack the republicans instead of each other, the dems would have it clinched.
But...
What a beautiful post Tom Cat. You took the words right out of my mouth! I am dismayed that Democrats are ripping each other apart. I am disheartened when I read an Obama supporter saying that they won't vote for Clinton, or a Clinton supporter saying that they won't vote for Obama.
I am an Obama supporter, but I will definitely, positively vote for Hillary Clinton. I like both of them, although there as aspects about both of them that I don't like. But compared to John McCain, they are both much much much better.
I have only done one post on this and it was saying that while I lean towards Obama, I like both Obama and Hillary.
I just can't believe that Democrats are at each other's throats and thus possibly handing over the general election to McCain. It just sickens me..
Thank you again, Tom Cat, for an excellent post and for an excellent blog!
I agree that this is (fortunately) a very bad cycle for the Republicans. People vote their pocketbooks (usually). I think the Democratic campaign troubles will be forgotten when the economy finally becomes front and center in the "general." The whole trickle-down philosophy is never more than a band aid (if it works at all).
Hear! Hear! The Dem candidates, particularly Hillary, need to stop it right now and go sit in the corner. Obama has been trying to take the high road, but whichever way either of them turn, somebody is going to dig something out of their past to smear them.
It is imperative for liberals to support positively, then vote for either when the time comes.
the goopers love watching the rock em sock em robot match -- and it has to stop...
what is equally important is holding on to both the senate and house -- but ALSO picking up seats in both -- and while the tide is with us, democrats are known to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
60 senate seats looks very rough -- but there is NO reason 5-6 seats can't be had -- taking it to 56.
(i toss out the asswipe Lieberman....i will kiss my mezzuzah the day we dont need his sorry ass anymore)
tom you should do a post on the mathematics of the senate election coming up and how important it is to get near 60 (i think 22/34 seats up are R this year)
Tom: I agree with you and all your commentors. The bottom line is this: We will support whatever candidate wins the nomination but we are giving fodder to the repubs by constantly bickering and fighting! Let's just get on with this so we can start the campaign against McCain!
Let us not forget that Martin Luther King had a dream.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. *We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only."* We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
The entire pile of BS which is today's Repug party is sickening. You might think the odds are stacked against them but forget it!
They are the underhanded controllers of our modern built to be stolen Political system.
Plus I said a long time ago if we do not figure out how to combat the Repug disinformation juggernaut we ae shoveling shit against the tide and our so called leaders have not.
Amidst all this mess here and abroad McCain is in Iraq looking at the successful failure and showing our soldiers he is their leader.
I am pissed he got the okay to fly there on his own. Hell you know they won't let Barack go. We have a hell of a fight and I keep seeing Rove over my shoulder!
Thanks, everyone for your agreement and good sense.
Thanks for the speech, Anjo.
The deleted comment was SPAM.
I agree completely! Well said.
Thanks, Maui.
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