Republicans See Storm Clouds Gathering

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: The Washington Post

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.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/15/AR2008031502047.html?nav=rss_politics

[nolabels]

1. The shotgun approach, paste up all kinds of stories to confuse

The dire consequences of a republican collapse at the polls because of low funds is B.S. Most those incumbent running for re-election have tons of money and would also bet challengers for new or changing seats are not paupers. Getting the guard put down is the first dirty trick the republicans would also want to play. Who would of thought the corporate press would play hand in hand with them :shrug:

[DemocratInSoCal]

3. Not So Sure I Agree With You

And as this country enters what could be a Depression, fewer and fewer people are going to want anything to do with the repubs.

The Democrats stand to sweep through everything the repubs don't try and steal electronically. I still think they stole a few races in '06, and will do so again in '08. But the larger the backlash against all things repub, the harder it will be for them to contain the damage.

The best thing that could happen for the Democratic party, is a complete and total collapse of the economy in the next 8 months. Of course, there might not be much of a country left to fix, and so any victory would be tempered by the reality, that we're completely and utterly FUCKED for many years to come, and no Democratic candidate will be capable of repairing the damage.

[iamjoy]

8. What A Heartless Attitude

to say it would be good for the Democrats if the economy completely melted down in the next 8 months without any regard for the people who will suffer as a result!

I hope an economic crisis can be avoided, although I wouldn't mind if people felt just concerned enough to recognize how disastrous Republican economic policies are.

[CANDO]

29. A quick study of history shows this is what it takes

for the American people to reject Republican economic policies. Not many of us were around the last time this occurred. It was called the Great Depression. More accurately the Republican Great Depression. The middle class has been suffering a slow death ever since Ronnie Raygun declared war on it in 1981. We've suffered under their destructive policies for nearly thirty years now, and it seems just a tad too many true believers are still out there. I tend to agree with the poster you responded to. It will hurt tremendously, but it must be left to die before it can be fixed. Even then, we face dire challenges to get it right. Luckily, we have history on our side. Thank you, FDR.

[iamjoy]

36. You Want People In Shantytowns and Breadlines

Is that really what you want - Americans living in Bushvilles and standing in line at the soup kitchen?

Or are you only saying you think this may be inevitable and you hope the timing works in our favor? On that much I could agree with you. I have said that if Katrina had to happen, I wish it had been in 2004. Then either the people of NOLA would have gotten the help they needed, or we would have had a Democratic victory come November. Many say (had said) the big storm hitting is not a matter of if, but when. So the best we can hope for is that disaster strikes in an election year.

[ryanmuegge]

31. The Republicans would blame on the Democratically "controlled" Congress

I wish I had grounds to have more faith in the American voting public, but I don't.

[nolabels]

13. I am in So. Cal. too, locked up in republican congressional district........

that was gerrymandederd by the State Democratic party. You also don't need to agree with me, just check the numbers yourself....


Here is a link that starts on the Journey to see for your self.......

Congressional Races
Here's the place for head-to-head comparisons of the candidates in every U.S. House and Senate race this year
(snip)
http://www.opensecrets.org/races/index.asp

[humbled_opinion]

15. Exactly what is your problem

So I need to go in a soup line and lose my job for Politics ... I don't think so..... The Democrats control the Congress and if there is an economic melt down they share the blame for not doing something about it.....

[ooglymoogly]

22. Now there is a good pug talking point.

The dems have a very tenuous upper hand in congress and have had that a little over one year and even that is balanced on the thin trip wire of the likes of Joe Lieberman and cronies. If you think that is enough to overturn the massive borrowing for the last 7 years and the drunken sailor pillaging of the treasury to give massive unregulated welfare to the rich and feed the vast war machines and their corporations; All the while propping up the bankrupt economy with borrowed paper, you are looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

[CANDO]

30. As we all know by now, no one "controls" congress until.....

you have veto proof majorities in both houses. What we effectively have now is Repubs still in control of the Senate because of the filibuster. They are "controlling" what gets voted upon and what doesn't. And in the House, we don't have two thirds majority to over-ride the veto. We can pass whatever we like out of the House, but it's just a dead letter.

[humbled_opinion]

33. Its still doesn't absolve the Congress.

They need to be out front taking the lead getting on TV and telling America what is wrong and what they want to do to fix it... Go directly to America by pass the idiot in the WH... Its great they can say the problems are because Bush screwed up but that ain't fixing it...

I think by now we all know he is the problem... Its way past time to stop talking and to start taking action.... LEADERSHIP NOW...

[lark]

34. I agree, we need progressive leadership from the House Dems

and with Nancy Pelosi in charge, we are not and will not get it. She's been such a major disappointment, I could almost cry at the lost opportunitites.

[N4457S]

16. Chris Thornberg...

...says we won't have a depression but the recession we will have is likely to come in somewhere between 1990-1991 and the mini recession we had in 2000-2001.

If you're highly exposed to mortgage debt, you're gonna get hurt. If you have too much credit card debt, you're gonna get hurt.

And if Hillary Clinton finds a way to wrangle the nomination away from Obama, it'll tear the party apart...in the middle of a war.

[populistdriven]

17. They don't need money - they have Hillary's coffers to keep the White House nt

[BadgerKid]

23. Re: utter collapse

It did cross my mind a while ago if this is what Congress had in mind.

Edit: Unless there's another explanation like being physically threatened by you-know-who-all.

[calimary]

26. Even so, it is helpful to have this stuff circulating out there for public consumption.

Because PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING.

Maybe they'll fool a few IDIOTS on our side back into complacent comas, but not everybody's going to be fooled again. And some of us NEVER were, to begin with. The more this perception is articulated in public, the better. Because it's not what you are, it's what increasing numbers of people THINK you are. That's how you build a brand (or pervert one - as they've done with the term "liberal").

About time republi-CONS' brand became subliminally a "LOSER" brand. republi-CONS = LOSERS. There's plenty of evidence to support this, from the condition of the economy after seven-and-some years of the GOP in the White House - and the climate that kind of mindset has created. It's getting later and later and later in the game to keep blaming Clinton for much of this. Yes, some, like NAFTA and the "improved" telecommunications deregulation on his watch. But the biggest share belongs smack-dab in the middle of the laps of the GOP. PERIOD.

Their "stewardship" of the economy includes their damned, slovenly, greedy, selfish, short-sighted laissez-fair attitude toward regulations - which is how, as one columnist put it, there's e coli in your spinach and lead on your Thomas the Tank Engine. That's what happens when the wolves are allowed to run amok on Wall Street and by now have rampaged through pretty much everything and everyone from the little guy with the too-big home mortgage to entire mortgage (and other) brokerage houses. Ironic, isn't it?

The way they've run our foreign policy, wherein we're now regarded as a rogue nation that can't be trusted because the pirates and jackals are running the show and EVERYONE knows their agenda. Everyone else around the world (and growing numbers of awakening Americans) have come to realize that the "cowboy diplomacy" of these folksy latter-day would-be John Waynes is gaining us far more enemies who hate us and wish us ill than has ever made us safe.

Which brings us back to the point two paragraphs above. I don't feel safer if I know umpteen people in my neighborhood are about to go belly-up. That doesn't do squat for my sense of safety and security. Or the knowledge that tens of millions of us share - that just ONE setback, ONE major illness or accident, ONE layoff, could send us careening over the edge. How does THAT awareness make one feel safe and secure??? THIS, TOO, IS HOMELAND SECURITY!!!

And if that's not unsettling enough, try the gnawing notion ever-present in the back of the mind that we could be victims of wire-tapping or otherwise violated even as we speak, without our knowledge, without a warrant, without recourse (as long as the Senate continues behaving as cowards). How does THAT make you feel? More secure and safe? Especially when you also know in the back of your mind that habeas corpus remains suspended and you can be "disappeared" by your own government if it doesn't care for the things you say or write or even read or listen to.

All this and more can be YOURS, Bob, if the price seems cheap enough - if you let it happen without trying to do anything to stop it, or impede it.

All these reasons contribute to branding the GOP as LOSERS. And if we keep that LOSER perception going, soon enough we won't need to give any reasons to back up that assertion. Because it will have become so ingrained as to be understood. PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING.

[Joanne98]

2. Just wait until all their triple A bonds fail. I hope they all jump out of windows.

[DemocratInSoCal]

4. Don't Worry, They'll Be Fine

The people at the top will golden parachute out of any harm. Don't worry, Ben, *, Paulsen, et al, will make certain their friends come out of this relatively unscathed. Perhaps offer up a couple of sacraficial lambs, to make it seem like they're doing something.

But the CEO's earning their $100+ Million salaries, bonuses, options, etc., will be out once the gravy train appears to be in trouble.

Then they'll go before Congress and LIE about how they didn't see it coming.

[MissWaverly]

6. Yes, we are going to bail out Bear Stearns

they were not a bank so they did not have to pay the same taxes as "banks" or follow the same regulations established during FDR to
keep the banks solvent so now that they are broke then they have morphed into a "bank" to get a federal bail-out. What will happen
when the real banks need shoring up, there will be money for cronies only.

[stubtoe]

5. They made their own bed, now they can lie in it.

:nopity:

[zanne]

7. Ah! A ray of sunshine!

Thanks for posting this. I feel better now.

[Thickasabrick]

9. Key takeaway from last paragraph - McCain has a chance the

longer the squabbling goes on between Hillary and Obama.

(from Page two of OP article)

"What you're seeing," he said, "is the impact the Democratic primary is having on voters at the national level. The longer this goes on, the better for our chances in November."

[Amerigo Vespucci]

12. There have been a number of recent articles on that subject...

...a few skeletons in McCain's own closet have been shielded from the light of day because of the infighting in our party.

I know there are some sharply drawn lines on DU between the pro-Hillary and pro-Obama camps, but I see no evidence that either of the campaigns has any reason to be proud over the way they have bickered back and forth. The world has been watching, and despite a number of promises to behave in a mature manner, we keep finding ourselves back in the mosh pit.

[Thickasabrick]

28. I just want our part to be over with so we can focus on McCain - of

course people saying they will vote for McCain if their favorite doesn't get the nomination isn't helping either....:wtf:

[Fovea]

10. In Missouri

The outgoing state house speaker, Rod Jetton, has decided not to run for governor.

He would face the current atty genl, Jay Nixon. The house of Blunt (Roy, Matt) appears to have jumped the shark as well. Ashcroft is all about the money.

As far as I can tell, the only Republican in Missouri who might actually be able to run for Governor in the foreseeable future and win is the current Lt. Gov, Pete Kinder, and I think he is a moderate.

And in deepest red SW Mo, the home of the theocon power brokers, Obama's primary vote totals surpassed that of all republican candidates combined. Hillary lost to Obama, and *still* beat McCain.

And Missouri is a far better bellwether, IMO than Ohio. It has not been as great a rust belt victim as Ohio. It has had farther to fall in a shorter period of time.

Missouri has the 5th highest number of highway milage and is a DOT donor state at the federal level. It has the second largest sprawl city in the US (KC). It has a very large undocumented labor problem.

And the Republican Party in Missouri has done it great economic harm with such things as their war on stem cell research and wink wink policy on illegal labor. They have embraced a know nothing militancy that makes the Concerned Women of America seem like a socialist tea party. The current speaker of the Missouri House once made farting noises at the Democratic former House Speaker during an address.

They now are facing the term limits they forced on the Democrats, and there is no new generation to take the lead. Collegiality has acquired a new attractiveness to the Greed, Oil, and Pollution party.

Missouri is turning blue by dint of the urban population and the age of the rural population of rugged individualists rethinking the social safety net.

Remember "The ownership society"? Now it is the "Foreclosure Society".
Missouri is about to turn the wide stance party into a snake handling cult.

And believe me when I tell you that they know this in Jeff City.

[dixiegrrrrl]

21. ty for the clarity----good rundown

[Phred42]

11. ...and rightly so.

...and rightly so. It will require a couple of generations of Progressive control to correct the problems caused in just the past 8 years.

This country cannot survive, as a democracy, why any further republican control of OUR government.

[StClone]

14. Failed Isms: Fascism, Communism, Republicanism

The economic policies of the Right, as it should now be apparent, are worst than dysfunctional (dangerous actually) and should be headed to the dust bins of history. The Conservative/Republicans were in charge in the first Depression and may have helped cause it. We have had eight years of their policies and guess what probably the worst U.S. downturn since the 30's. There should be no strike three and the party should be disbanded and a the Greens should take their place.


What is a Depression?
From Kimberly Amadeo,

A. A depression is a severe economic downturn that lasts several years. Fortunately, the U.S. economy has not experienced a depression since The Great Depression of 1929, which lasted ten years. The GDP growth rates were of a magnitude not seen since:

1. 1930 -8.6%
2. 1931 -6.4%
3. 1932 -13%
4. 1933 -1.3%.

During the Depression, unemployment was 25% and wages (for those who still had jobs) fell 42%. Total U.S. economic output fell from $103 to $55 billion and world trade plummeted 65% as measured in dollars.

The Depression was aggravated by poor monetary policy. Instead of pumping money into the economy, and increasing the money supply, the Fed allowed the money supply to fall 30%. The "New Deal" created many government programs to end the Depression, but government programs alone could not end it.

[ShockediSay]

27. Lately, Republicanism, Rove/Gingrich/Limbaugh's 'permanenent Republican majority'

has been busted for what it really is:

FASCISM

ask Republican Ron Paul

[StClone]

32. One in the same.

It all leads to a psychotic episode.

Nepotism, warring, sexually repressed behavior, unrestrained Authoritarianism etc. are all the end products of the Conservative agenda. Calling it Fascism doesn't make it sweeter :sarcasm:

[bluerum]

18. From an earlier thread:

Wall Street fears for next Great Depression
The Long Demise of Glass-Steagal
Wall Street fears for next Great Depression

on edit:sp :blush:

[Warpy]

19. I can't believe those old boys didn't anticipate this stuff

but I guess they're so busy trying to blow smoke up each other's arses that the reality that their economic dogma was completely wrong, that they have devolved from a political party into a racketeering organization in their lust for power, and that the combination of the two has turned them all into felons that they're missing all but the stories that are so completely awful that the tame MSM feels compelled to report them.

Storm clouds are nice enough, I guess, but I'm waiting for the lightning to start striking the clueless, dishonest bastards.

[Fovea]

24. I don't think you will have too long to wait

I see gas hitting $4.89/gal by August.
Airfares are going up like an airbus as we speak.

The EU has for the most part, a public transit system orders of magnitude better than ours. We are going to really pay for that, when it turns out that Jim Kunstler was an optimist.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/

Latin America is rejecting the dollar. Guess where those dollars are going to wind up. Oil has turned out to be a hole in our treasury that our nation's value has drained out of. Likewise, Anything you have right now that is made in China is part of the problem.

Once we actually have to make our own goods, things will improve, I think. But I think the global economy is going to change violently.
Regional power is going to replace global power. And that is bad news, because we suck as a regional power.

Since the Monroe doctrine, our hemisphere has been declared ours to neglect. Ok, ours to neglect and abuse. Notice how poorly we fared as a nation in NAFTA and CAFTA. So did Mexico and Central America. Illegal workers from Mexico could work in the border slave labor economy, but would rather come here for our underclass wages than stay and be peons in a sense that would embarrass any colonial hacienda master.

I think our economy will look entirely different in four years. But getting there is not going to be easy or fun.

Just achieving enough demand destruction for gasoline is going to be a subject of great national upheaval. By next winter, I predict at least one group of former Blackwater/CACI/Erynies, etc will start highjacking fuel trucks in Iraq for black market sales. Then, they will start in the US.

As demand destruction starts to lower the price of oil, these same Mercs will work to sabotage the logistic infrastructure to create more price spikes.

If we had done due diligence after Enron, and re regulated business-- if we had nationalized the oil industry-- we would now be back on the track to 1990s prosperity. If we cut our military size to 1/3rd its current bulk we would be in better shape, because the industry is no longer disbursing as much domestic wealth. We need to shred the golden parachute, and de capitate executive salaries.

It is going to take us a while to figure our way out of the Bush mess.
But when we do, I think America will look a lot different.

[bronxiteforever]

20. Kick & R-

[tanyev]

25. GWB: "I think 2008 is going to be a fabulous year for the Republican Party"

Prescient as ever.

[CRK7376]

35. But Bush says

his party will sweep the fall elections....Is he lieing to us again?.....good luck Shrub!

[Supersedeas]

37. complete and utter annihilation of the party--make them scrap it and start over