WP, Dionne: What's happening to NY State GOP is national GOP's nightmare

[DeepModem Mom]

'The Empire State Strikes Back'
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 13, 2006; Page A29

NEW YORK -- What is happening to the Republican Party in New York state is the national GOP's nightmare. The once-thriving political organization of Nelson Rockefeller, Al D'Amato and George Pataki is a shambles.

And the way the Republican coalition has broken up should have national Republicans scurrying for a new game plan....

***

The Republican collapse here has been driven by two streams of defectors: suburban moderates and Upstaters.

As a result, the entire Democratic ticket, led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, the party's candidate for governor, is expected by just about everyone to sweep the state. As many as five Upstate Republican congressional seats -- they would constitute a third of the 15 seats that Democrats need to win the House -- are in jeopardy....Democrat Dan Maffei, a former congressional aide who is running a surprisingly strong race against Rep. Jim Walsh, the Republican incumbent, in a district that stretches from Syracuse to the Rochester area....sees the immediate trend toward Democrats powered by frustration with President Bush and the Iraq war. But it is also rooted in long-term factors: the economic troubles of many Upstate communities, the area's "libertarian" leanings on cultural issues and the homelessness felt by many moderate Republicans in the face of a national party increasingly dominated by conservatives....

***

"The two trends are quite universal," (Bill de Blasio, who managed Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign and is now a New York City Council member from Brooklyn) says. "There's a growing body of suburbanites who are increasingly concerned about the rightward drift of the Republican Party, and voters very worried about what's happening to real wages."...(Al D'Amato, the voluble Republican who served 18 years in the U.S. Senate until he was defeated in 1998 by Charles Schumer), normally a happy Republican warrior, is in a blue mood about November. "You have a foreign policy which is groping and a domestic Foley scandal, so you have a lot of disaffected people, and I think it's going to result not only in the Democrats taking over the House, but also with substantial numbers."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101201666.html

[Kagemusha]

1. ...and a domestic Foley scandal, which is also groping...

at least that's one way I'd characterize it.

Here's hoping that Spitzer becomes a cornerstone for the party in NY State for the next two decades or something. The sky's the limit.

[fujiyama]

3. LOL

Groping is an interesting choice of a word isn't it? Nice to see the party falling apart in the state.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Good one! The Groping Old Party? nt

[Skittles]

13. Groping Old Perverts

yes INDEED

[aquart]

2. Try not stealing with both hands next time, fellas.

[barb162]

4. I don't agree with this analysis, but as long as it ends up Spitzer

and other Dems win, I don't care

[David Dunham]

5. The NY GOP is not totally gone. They have had the State Senate since 1935

[Peace Patriot]

6. New York still has the reliable, old, unriggable lever voting machines.

New Yorkers have resisted the change to electronic voting machines run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations.

Sensible people, New Yorkers.

In California, we had a coup against our good Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, who had sued Diebold, decertified the worst of their election theft machines and demanded to see their source code, prior to the 2004 election. Bushites, the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, and corrupt county election officials (headed by Connie McCormack in Los Angeles), with the state Democratic legislators (with 2 to 1, and 3 to 2, majorities) hiding under their desks or colluding with the enemy, drove Shelley from office on entirely bogus corruption charges and installed Diebold shill Bruce McPherson--a Republican appointed by Schwarzenegger--to run our elections. He has now ILLEGALLY RE-certified Diebold touchscreens and is undoing all of Shelley's many reforms.

Stupid people, Californians. California is a prime Bush Cartel target, a place for rightwing nutballs and scumbags like Kenneth Starr to retreat to, after they fuck over the country.

So it may be that New York will have real elections, and the majority will have representation there. I don't know about California or the rest of our Diebolded country. Some votes against Bushites will be so overwhelming as to defeat the 5% to 10% advantage to Republicans and warmongers. Others, I don't know what will happen. All I know is that we must....

Throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

One way to do that is by massive Absentee Ballot voting this fall.

If everyone who despises the Bush Junta--60% to 70% of the American people--votes by Absentee Ballot, the reign of these diabolical machines will be OVER. Election officials will be unable to defend this rigged system--and will be forced to reform it, or be driven from office--if NOBODY WILL VOTE ON THEIR SHINY NEW CRAPASS MACHINES!

Bust the Machines--Vote by Absentee Ballot this November!

Californians, you have until Oct. 31 to request an Absentee Ballot. (The voter registration deadline is a week earlier, Oct. 23.) Check local rules for other states.

With so many electronic voting machine breakdowns--which may be used strategically to disenfranchise people--voting by Absentee Ballot is your ONLY guarantee that you will in fact be able to cast your vote.

[OneBlueSky]

7. what's going to create the NY landslide? . . . Repugs staying home . . .

the disgust with BushCo, and particularly George W., is pretty widespread among Independents (there's a lot of them in NY) and even Republicans . . . most of the disgusted Independents will likely vote Democratic . . . some of the Repugs, of the Rockefeller wing, may also vote Democratic, but they comprise a far smaller piece of the Republican party than they used to . . .

today, most NY Republicans are -- or were -- Bush supporters, who were brainwashed into supporting the BushCo agenda . . . many of these folks have been so well indoctrinated that it would be sacrilege for them to vote Democratic . . . my hunch is that a lot of them (save the most diehard dittoheads) will simply stay home on Election Day . . . while they feel in their gut that change is desperately needed, they can't bring themselves to betray Rush and his ilk by voting Democratic . . . so they're really conflicted about what to do . . .

I have a strong hunch that many, many of them will simply do nothing . . .

[DeepModem Mom]

8. Thanks for your perspective -- I have a hunch you're right. nt

[Tom Rinaldo]

12. Democrats CAN pick up 5 Congressional Seats in New York

It really is possible for us to do that, and that would be HUGE. No NY seats were originally on the first lists of possible Democratic pick ups. 5 seats, think of it, fully one third of the seats that Democrats need nationally to take over control of the House. We have some great candidates running circles around their G.O.P. opponensts. All they need are a few more volunteers and a little more grassroots cash and we can sweep those 5 districts.

[saltpoint]

9. Dionne is such a readable analyst. Just terrific stuff all the time.

And he brings good tidings here again.

The Republican Party gets no praise on DU's boards, and properly so. They've earned the lack of support on Iraq. Bush has led them into darkness. It's up to their voters to light torches and lead them out into a more cooperative, collaborative party again, and the first step there is to abandon the party until it makes meaningful reforms. They need a few more Danforths and McCloskys and a lot fewer Santorums and Coburns.

And absolutely nobody named Bush.

[DeepModem Mom]

10. Well said, Crusoe! nt