`A horror show for Republicans'

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0609040148sep04,1,2703029.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Election forecasts dim GOP hopes for an enduring majority

By Jill Zuckman
Washington Bureau
Published September 4, 2006


WASHINGTON -- Karl Rove had a grand vision as he crafted George W. Bush's first presidential campaign.

Republicans not only would capture the White House, they also would realign American politics, creating an enduring majority that would rival President Franklin Roosevelt's accomplishment for Democrats almost 70 years earlier.

Now, though, as the congressional election season kicks off in earnest this Labor Day weekend, nobody is talking about realignment. Rather, Republicans concede they are struggling simply to cling to power.

Numerous political analysts are forecasting that a tidal wave of voter dissatisfaction will wash Republicans out of office on Nov. 7 and possibly hand control of the House back to Democrats, who also are poised for gains in the Senate and to win back governorships.

"The Republicans had a great run for a while, and it's over," said Charlie Cook, a non-partisan analyst and founder of the Cook Political Report.

[saltpoint]

1. Good. Let it be. And let's double-lock the tomb door, too.

Go, Democrats.

[rusty charly]

2. and throw away the key.

[Hubert Flottz]

4. Lock Box...

We need to put the crooks in a lock box! With bars.

Edit...ooops I've got WIDE(fat)fingers that hit two keys at the same time.

[saltpoint]

6. Excellent precaution. LOL!

[tinfoilinfor2005]

16. Hahahahahaha!

Made me laugh :)

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

3. Their "great run" has almost destroyed our nation.

I'm not certain they have not succeeded.

[walldude]

11. Those were the 2 words that caught my eye "great run"

Amazing... tens of thousands dead on their watch and it's considered a great run. :mad:

[guinivere]

13. They obviously don't understand what having a 'great run' means.

Basic rights on shakey ground, war based on lies, lies in general and a poor economy don't make for a great run.

[mike_c]

5. I hope the republican party does a bit of honest self evaluation...

...and looks at what has happened to the country during the last six years, and during the last several republican administrations in general. I can't believe that all republicans are borg operatives-- many MUST be capable of realizing that political corruption, imperialism abroad, loss of civil rights and freedom at home, a burgeoning public debt, unnecessary, prolonged, and ill-conceived war, support for oppressive foreign regimes, extreme partisanship, economic decline, the destruction of the middle class, and etc. are not in America's interest.

[sarge43]

8. You're assuming they care about America's interests.

They don't give an obese rodent's hind end about this country. All they're interested in is power and profit.

[Lexingtonian]

15. Hahaha!!!

That's the funniest deadpan post I've seen in a while.

I mean, I hope you're not serious in thinking that Republicans will take a sober, realistic, just, and human look at themselves and their contemptible record. If they did they'd be jumping off bridges en masse already. They're all about drunkenness and addiction to power, stupidity being superior to humility and wisdom, delusions of grandeur, and the inhumanity and arrogance of ubermenschen. Oh, and the only real solution they have to large problems is to bully or kill people, isn't it?

[mike_c]

20. I just don't get it....

All kidding aside, the situation is that either half the country is as venal and self-centered as you say-- in which case I'd argue that the notion of America as a "nation" in any coherent way is ridiculous-- rather, it's a loose association of materialist mercenaries who serve no cause greater than their own personal gain-- OR a significant portion of that half of the population has been deluded into supporting a greedy minority. In the first case there is no hope for America, so it's time to stop pretending that there is, and in the second case we can hope that the deluded take a long hard look at what their leaders have done.

[Lexingtonian]

28. Look at the past 12-16 years

and tell me the country was coherent, let along altruistic or generous.

I view this fight we've had along partisan lines as a showdown rather parallel to the Civil War. I think each year of the Civil War can be aligned to roughly a four year stretch of the past dozen plus. In acrimony and bitter battles won and lost and power balance and hope of the reactionary/retrogressive rebellion to re-create a feudal/imperial world to prevail.

Even the stakes are parallel, in the Civil War the national sovereignty and full implementation of the 13th Amendment in American society and in our bitter fight the sovereignty and full implementation of the 14th Amendment (which has been grossly underenforced or nonenforced since Reconstruction, if not from ratification).

I don't see a reason for extreme pessimism. Yes, our society's racial and gender and religious bigotry and xenophobia and the colonial economics and caste privilege system, All That, are only going to utterly die out with the Believers in them. (Just like institutional slavery only truly died out on this continent with the generation of the last slavery tolerators, slaveholders, and ex-slaves in the 1920s.) But the war we've waged is, like the Civil War, not for that reason futile- we've ended the ability of these ideas and privileges to prevail in the public square, and without the opposition they could have propagated and claimed victims for a further generation or century.

This is just how we make social and historical progress as a country. The fight is a test of how serious we are, and how responsible. Americans hate looking backwards at all the historical baggage of the Settlement and pretend it doesn't exist, but much of our politics is about out resolving- or not resolving- parts of it. One way of looking at the history of the colonies and U.S. is that the civilized/humane and the uncivilized/inhumane polarize and fight over a portion of the Constitution in roughly 75 year long bouts. From 1640 to 1715ish the fight was about theocracy (and we got the First Amendment out of that), from 1715 to 1790 about monarchy (the body of the Constitution and Bill of Rights), from 1790 to 1865 about slavery and/or aristocracy (the 13th and 15th Amendments), and to 1940 about meaningful democracy (19th Amendment mostly). Since 1940 we've been fighting about the 14th Amendment's guarantees of equality of civil rights and fairness of opportunity/treatment, which are in conflict with much of the residual caste system organized by race, gender, heredity, and behavior which was created during Settlement.

[senseandsensibility]

7. Charlie Cook is not a non partisan analyst

:shrug: I have seen him identified many times on cable TV as a republican analyst. His comments are always right wing and he always defends the repugs.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

19. He's jumped ship too

gittin to be an everyday occurrence. :)

[salin]

22. may be that is more "inside the beltway" slant, than partisan

I used to hear him speak, on a pretty regular basis, in the mid eighties. Very political geeky - but not terribly issue oriented - beyond how that position plays politically in a particular political context.

A lot of the media in DC is cliqueish - and casts a semi similar world view. Sorta makes one want to make the capital (at least congress) rotate (two years in one locale, two years in another) - but that is too unpragmatic and costly to ever happen.

I hadn't seen him referred to as a Republican pollster, that rather surprises me.

[senseandsensibility]

25. Oops...I just googled his image and realized that I mixed him

up with someone else. Who is that very partisan Charlie something that used to appear all the time on crossfire and similar shows? Maybe Charles Black...he was appalling.

[bandy]

9. Hate to sound like a pessimist but

I've read this same summary from approx. 6 different sources in the last few days. The first time I saw it gave me hope. But, now I'm starting to get a creepy feeling that a lot of pubs are all using this same story, just putting it in their own words, as told to them by none other then Rove himself. Could this just be another dirty trick and the votes have already been counted and surprise, surprise, America changed their minds on election day?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

21. I think it's a last ditch effort to get their people to vote.

See, all those Repug voters, the one's who are saying they just aren't going to the polls at all, have them scared. They know if 10% stay home, we will take the majority.
So they are trying to scare them, "the evil liberals will be in charge!"

Fear is all they have left. It's worked for years, they just haven't realized that people are getting beyond afraid to 'duped and angry'.

[zanne]

23. bandy--I know that sometimes, they are out to get you.

But not this time! I'm very optimistic and a lot of people here could tell you; I'm no optimist.

[bandy]

24. One can only hope...

and boy, do I hope (and pray).

[stepnw1f]

10. That's Because People Like Rove are Doing it For Themselves

and not the country. What a deluded thing to assume a whole country would want to grovel to a super class. The reason they failed already, is because they were dishonest from the beginning. And we know why they were dishonest from the beginning, because they also knew their ideals would be rejected if they were to be honest about what direction they wished to take this country.

I'd say Rove is a victim of his own inferiority complex. He and Bush belong together, Always needing to feel "Superior".

[MissMarple]

12. "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Poor KKKarl has been trying to ignore Lord Acton whispering in the wings. It is time for the GOP to exit the building, their show has been canceled.

[applegrove]

14. Nobody drop their guard. This is campaign kick-off week. The first

article dissing Rove had quotes from all sorts of will Repuke leaders talking about how they never talk to Karl.

You keep your resolve high you hear! :shrug: This is an election campaign.

[mitchtv]

17. I'll wait before I contribute to their obituary

After all,the pink tutu crowd is still affrrraiiidd of being called "liberals", or of playing tough, too quick to apologize. Too addicted to losing.

[KingFlorez]

18. It's the Last Midnight, it's the boom splat

It's all over for the Republicans and I couldn't be happier

[Eric J in MN]

26. From the lips of these pollsters to God's ears. (NT)

NT

[Cleita]

27. If we finally do give them the boot and I know it won't be

easy, because they will do all and every sleazy trick they can to stay in power, it should prove to the nation that Republicans can't run an ant farm right, let alone a nation. They finally got what they wanted, complete control, and they have proved what dismal failures they are.