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Edited on Fri Feb-17-06 11:46 AM by calimary
remember one critical thing:
If it comes to that - we have a sitting vice president taken down and forced to resign amid all kinds of never-ending crap swirling around him - from all quarters, involving all kinds of broken laws and violations of civil rights and other portions of the Constitution, that will leave such a cloud, such a sour taste toward republi-CONS in general that their prospects in '08, no matter who's leading their campaign, they'd VERY likely lose.
A scandal that big would be front-page headlines for months and will bleed all over a whole bunch of the rest of them, whether they're perceived to be involved or not. When Agnew, and then Nixon, too, went down, Republicans couldn't - um - pardon the pun - get arrested for love nor money in the next election. That's when Jimmy Carter got in. It was as though there was a pox on their house, the GOP suffered badly, across the board, the next time the voters spoke. Many of them, loyal Republicans themselves, were so disgusted and fed up that even THEY were saying it was time to give the other side a chance, for a change. It just left a REALLY bad taste in everyone's mouth, and it was NOT a good, or fun time to be a Republican. And what was really cool was that EVERYBODY KNEW IT!!!! The bad guys all scurried under rocks and stayed there (unfortunately, plotting an eventually successful return). But being a Republican was not something you bragged about, or even brought up in polite company for awhile. In short, it was QUITE lovely. And VERY well deserved.
So, frankly, bring 'em on. I don't care. If cheney goes down (and if his bad publicity continues - hell, even some of the guys at Pox "news" note openly how much cheney's hated), they'll have to enlist Oprah to have any chance to save their party in the next election. And that isn't likely. They'll all be rendered damaged goods.
ESPECIALLY... if cheney goes down amidst a maelstrom of legal trouble, which would KEEP him AND that legal trouble in the headlines, reminding everybody about it all the time, he'll be far too busy to operate the strings on his marionette who'll still be in the Oval Office. He'll try, of course, since he'll purportedly be off the radar. But knowing cheney, who's really only EVER in business for himself, his own personal woes will keep him preoccupied, and li'l ol' george will have to fend for himself. Furthermore, I'd suspect that, by then, kkkarl will have plenty of his own problems.
The fuckups will continue. Iraq ISN'T going to get any better. If we take off against Iran, too, THAT won't get any better, either, especially since Iran is far better able to defend itself, and has had a LOT of time to recover since the Iran/Iraq war. They're doing just fine. They will be a ferociously potent adversary. george and friends will, deep down, come to regret taking them on, as will all their supporters.
Look, I'm no psychic. If they're really shrewd, they'll jettison cheney BEFORE the next election, so they have a "fresh start," with a "fresh face" to show the public, to woo them, and Mr. (or Ms.) Fresh Face will be sent out on the stump like nobody's business like their own personal Superman/woman to save the party. There will be a lot of "that's over. That's so yesterday. We're new and improved. Bad all gone. dick who? Never heard of him. SO over. 9/11. Let's all move on, now, shall we, kiddies?" But it's not a sure bet how the public will react. The die-hard Kool-aid drinkers will fall for it like trees to the clear-cutters. But they comprise about 30 percent of the electorate. There's the rest of them, and the rest of us, who will be so thoroughly soured on the republi-CONS that the mood will shift toward Dems. It depends on our people, how hard they fight (and yes, on us, too), to secure that. If we make nice and do a Mary Beth Cahill and lay down for the swift boat swifties, then we're sunk. Which, I suppose, could happen. We still have dear darling Bob Shrum in there, the republi-CONS' best friend, and too many of the Good Guys still pay attention to people like him.
But look - the mood in the country is sour, and getting worse. LET THEM go to war against Iran. FINE. That'll gain them ground for about 20 minutes. I think we're too close, at this point, to reaching critical mass for the momentum to turn back to their favor. There's just too much shit going on. Too many new shitty things piling up. And there's the libby thing. And the NSA spying thing. And Judy Miller may have to testify again. And it could be rove this time. And there's the delay thing. And there's the Abramoff thing (which seems to be expanding by the hour). And there's the new load of Abu Ghraib photos. AGAIN, with this frankly ridiculous and - in a larger sense - trivial cheney shooting incident (at least, assuming the guy lives), it's an illustration of gross incompetence and poor handling of something on a national level. Um... haven't we heard/seen/experienced this same general type of fuckup before? Ask the folks in New Orleans, for example. It's been a pattern since forever with these people. And I think it's catching up with them. To our benefit. I think the voters will throw up their hands at these republi-CONS the next time the get the chance, and you may see a whole lot of changes in Washington.
I just hope our guys do the correct thing: POUND AWAY ON such things as "rEPUBLICAN-RUN Congress," "rEPUBLICAN-RUN Senate," "rEPUBLICAN-RUN Judiciary" and the rest. And if they'll just start using the "L" word in all its forms: LIARS, LYING, LIED, A LIE, KEEP LYING, JUST ANOTHER LIE, they ARE LYING, they've BEEN LYING, they're STILL LYING. And so forth.
There's another thought, too: are they really gonna want to pull a republi-CON out of the Senate for something - leaving an open spot that might go to a Democrat, cutting their lead by one? I know their pattern is to risk big. Maybe they do. Hard to say.
Basically, I think we just have to keep our eyes on the prize, make like ralph reed (and keep working to grow our party from the bottom up, and with stealth when necessary), and work toward achieving critical mass. Once we've achieved critical mass, the rest will take care of itself.
on edit -
Aw shit, I did it again. Sorry this is so long.
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