Chickens Coming Home to Roost
That sound you hear is the thunder of chicken wings. (No, not that kind of thunder.) The sound of a million chickens coming home to roost. If the GOP can't hold the first congressional district in Mississippi, then they are in real danger of a historic blowout in the November election. It wasn't for lack of trying. The GOP candidate raised more than a million dollars, national GOP spent $1.3 million dollars, Freedom's Watch spent $400k more, and the state party must have spent something. Hell, they even sent Darth Cheney down to get the Death Star back on schedule. And the Democrat won by eight points.
The problem for the GOP this fall is that the hard-core, pro-Bush rump is going to demand that the party run an aggressive, "librul-librul-librul" campaign, with photos of Nancy Pelosi and talk of "surrender." Both at the presidential level and in the congressional races. Any time McCain tries to put daylight between himself and Bush, there's going to be pushback ("librul!"). McCain is likely going to be forced to run a disastrous campaign by the folks in his own party. Most of whom still support the Bush administration. Fervently.
But Bush is the most unpopular president in living memory, and he's going to swamp his party in the November congressional elections. Sure, McCain might beat Obama. That could happen, although the odds are that it won't. But let me "concern troll" for the GOP for a minute. If the GOP doesn't want to see overwhelming Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate in 2009, then they had better change their tune. Because the lilting notes of "Bush Uber Alles" will only draw more chickens.
posted by Number Three @ 8:30 AM
1 Comments:
Republicans are now running around talking about how to alter their message and strategy to become agents of "change." But this is obviously windowdressing: a shift of PR not substance.
The one thing that would help them, and the one thing no one seems to be saying in the GOP, is that they need to abandon their support for GWB, they need to stop filibustering every single Dem bill, and they need to greatly MODERATE both their agenda and their rhetoric. Who exactly would make that case? Every one of the GOP's forums for discussion (FOX, talk radio, the right blogosphere, etc.) is so ideologically driven that they cannot possibly accept that answer. So they'll continue to try to distance themselves from GWB by becoming even MORE ideologically extreme. More tax cuts for the rich, more time in Iraq, more immigrant bashing, more cynical race and patriotism baiting. American voters, even rural Mississippi voters, seem to be recognizing that there's not enough lipstick in all of Tupelo to pretty up that pig.
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