Duh...Whazup?

[DocDiggs]

the has-been
No Idea

Republicans unveil their new line for the fall.

By Bruce Reed


Still Searching: With their poll numbers in free fall, GOP strategists had to do something to stop the midterm bleeding. So, in the last week, congressional Republicans began unveiling a new strategy: Promising not to have an agenda. As Dan Balz and Jonathan Weisman pointed out in Monday's Washington Post, "While it is a Republican refrain that Democrats criticize Bush but have no positive vision, for now the governing party also has no national platform around which lawmakers are prepared to rally."

For five years, Republicans trashed Democrats as bereft of ideas. Now that they see Democrats up by 10 points, Republicans are rushing to claim the mantle of no ideas for themselves. Caught by surprise, Democratic consultants quickly fired back: Hey, we had no ideas first.

Just two weeks ago, the very same Post ran another front-page story giving Democrats the edge in being slow to unveil an agenda. But when a sitting president uses the full power of incumbency to generate no ideas, a minority party can't keep up. The whole country saw Bush put his lack of an agenda on display in a prime-time State of the Union address. Moreover, when it comes to tired ideas, Democrats can't possibly compete with a Republican Party whose sole remaining bedrock principle is a tax cut theory that didn't work a quarter century ago, either.

The truth is, Democrats are increasingly eager to get out of the no-idea business and leave that turf to the Republicans. Many Democrats actually have ideas, so it has become a real burden for the party to pretend otherwise.

There has always been an inherent contradiction in the Republican rap: Democrats have no plan for the country—and it will do irreparable damage if they have the chance to carry it out. Fred Barnes captures this cognitive dissonance in the Weekly Standard: "Some Republicans insist it doesn't matter whether Democrats finally offer a party agenda. 'The question is not what they promise,' [RNC Chair Ken] Mehlman told me. 'It's what they are going to do' that is important.' "

Barnes says that Republican strategists want to make 2006, like 2004, a "choice election"—another way of saying they intend to bomb Democrats with attack ads until they can see the rubble bounce. The White House is terrified that many congressional Republicans, wary of Bush's unpopularity, have already made their choice: to run as far away from the president as possible.

Barnes does reveal one new idea on House Republicans' agenda: "legislation to bar all federal courts except the Supreme Court from ruling on the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance." Conservatives don't like judges legislating from the bench, so Republicans will do the opposite: benching from the legislature. Now that they have a reliable majority on the Supreme Court, Republicans want to send the rest of the judiciary home.

Sounds of Silence: Because they are so deeply divided on issues like immigration and fiscal discipline, Republicans have decided to avoid making the election a referendum on their agenda. Given our success with a similar strategy in recent elections, I think I can speak for most Democrats in saying to the GOP: Good luck with that.

Republicans' goal is to keep Democrats from nationalizing the midterm election. The chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Rep. Tom Reynolds, told the Post, "All politics is local." That way, Republican incumbents can reassure constituents that while they have no ideas, the agenda they don't have is designed to ignore problems at the local level.

The most remarkable assertion in the Post story was attributed to House Majority Whip Roy Blunt: "Blunt said it is more important for Democrats to produce a governing agenda because Republicans have a record to run on." Never mind that their record is what has Republicans running scared to begin with.

Democrats should seize the opportunity to put forward a new agenda for the country's sake, and their own. If the GOP wants to turn the midterms into a choice between the potential consequences of Democratic ideas and the current impact of the Bush record, that's a deal worth taking. There's a good answer to rebut the Republican charge that the Democrats' plan will run the country into the ground: You ran the country into the ground first. ... 9:46 A.M. (link)



Monday, Mar. 20, 2006


Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2138388/

[Scrappy]

LOL what a strategy, no strategy

In the immortal words of someone "We'll burn that bridge after we cross it" or was it "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it"? Dunno, but I use both depending on the context.
I'd tell you the secret doc, but you'd give it away

[DocDiggs]

Dunno about giving it away, Scrappy. Lotsa times I can't...nobody wants what I'm givin'!

[Scrappy]

Really, the democrats have no beachhead to start charging from. I would've thought they'd gain traction in the NSA's wiretapping, but their afraid of jeapordizing their own desires. They can't rail on enough about the rebuilding of Iraq because they'd get their butts handed to them with all the stuff we've done and are still are doing there. The media has tried to latch onto the idea of a civil war... Iraqi clerics aren't buying that one, and calling for peace. We've got a tax break about to expire, which the repub's made happen , so the dems will get something broke off if they go after that on point.

It's not that hard to see, once a plan has been put in place, and is going on like a locamotive and everyone know where it's going . Laying new track and changing it's course is hard; derailing the train would be easier, but all the passengers would be extremely upset.

[Snowden]

Maybe the best thing would be to have a decent third party? We have a plethora of "third parties," but none that can - or ever will, most likely - offer us a party where the poor, hard working and decent man can even run for local office, let along the presidency.

The Oval Office is up for grabs - but don't reach for it unless you are a multi-millionaire (or married to one) and friend of others in the same category.

There has to be an answer. At this point it seems to me that the two parties are just too much alike. The differences are too few. Am I missing something here?

[DocDiggs]

Originally Posted by Snowden

Maybe the best thing would be to have a decent third party? We have a plethora of "third parties," but none that can - or ever will, most likely - offer us a party where the poor, hard working and decent man can even run for local office, let along the presidency.

The Oval Office is up for grabs - but don't reach for it unless you are a multi-millionaire (or married to one) and friend of others in the same category.

There has to be an answer. At this point it seems to me that the two parties are just too much alike. The differences are too few. Am I missing something here?

It's all going to H*ll, M. It's the Last Days, but even the next 2 1/2 years will pass eventually.

[Scrappy]

George Soros for pres