Thumpin' for GOP

The analysis of 2006 is non-stop and ubiquitous. But why leave a chance for another post?

Two months back on 'Meet the Press' when Dick Cheney bet Tim Russert a dinner that GOP would hold down both the house and the senate, Russert did not take him up on that. I was inclined to agree with Cheney then. The GOP narrative had not changed, its strategy of putting the Dems on the defense in national security was very much in play, news on the economy was generally postitive, Mark Foley's instant messages hadn't exploded on the national news yet. But there was a silent and systematic campaign by two quintessential urban Jewish democrats, Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel on the back ground. Their strategy was to out-Jesus and out-hick the GOP with candidates that would not lend themselves to easy caricatures of familiar GOP hit and run tactics. In Pennsylvania, Bob Casey Jr. a well known anti-abortion Catholic was pitted against the Christian warrior Rick Santorum (a Catholic as well). This made Rick Santorum the single speech Hamilton with respect to abortion, weaponless. In Montana, the candidate was a gun owning anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, ole-farm boy with a square top haircut running against a corruption tainted old-pol Conrad Burns. In Virginia, an ex-republican, marine veteran, Navy secretary ran wearing his son's combat boots ( who is currently deployed in Iraq ) against the Presidential hopeful George 'Macaca' Allen. Boy! I need a new post to cover this one single word. His introductory TV spot was an old footage of Ronald Reagan praising him to a military audience, which had Allen in fits. In Tennessee, the candidate was the charismatic Harold Ford, who looked up and prayed publicly at every available oppurtunity. Boy, if Bible guaranteed there was a vote for every mention of the word 'Jesus', he would have won too. The strategy was similar in many house races. This recruitment strategy in itself was not a election winner, but it set up the Dems in good position if the electorate wanted to look for alternatives, they found someone on the ballot who had just managed to survive the race up until the election day with a (D) next to their name.

And then the 'I' word began to pick up momentum. If you see the level of violence or the clueless, moronic fox-trot of US Foreign Policy in Iraq since March 2003, there was nothing dramatic that happened in the last 2 months. The situation was more or less similar to conditions in Nov. 2004. But what changed was the GOP did not have a monolithic person or idea to run against. That brought the constant drum beat of lack of progress and widespread dissatisfaction to the fore. In 2004, GOP had the "anti-veteran, phony, liberal, wishy-washy weak and wobbly flip-flopper" aka John Kerry. The intrasigence in acknowledging the problems in Iraq by the Bush administration and the other-worldy 'optimism' of Cheney-Rumsfeld made the GOP look dangerously callous in its approach and execution of the war. The numbers steadily rose and the GOP was in trouble. Emanuel and Schumer had a one line advice for their candidates: Dont' f**k this up! Apparently they were not wise enough to include Kerry on the address list, as he was not on the ballot. Kerry with his stupid botched joke came close enough to f**k this up and gave GOP their Nov.2004 rerun. But he was forcibly silenced by everybody in his party. His hometown newspaper Boston Herald ran an editoral titled 'Shut up and Sit down'.

Finally the night ended up with a thumpin' for the GOP. This is not to be construed as some sign of dramatic realignment of forces in American politics as many democrats that won that night are not liberal anti-war candidates. They represent America's quest for change and salvation from the mess in Iraq. As in other democracies American citizens armed with the right information took a prudent choice in acknowledging the failed nature of the whole idea of Iraqi invasion and looking for a B- to C+ grade in getting out of there which they were not going to get with Cheney-Rumsfeld who were already claiming an A+ with their cooked up grade sheet.

My personal satisfaction in the race was the ouster of Rick Santorum and George Allen from the senate and hence the race for GOP nomination in 2008. I strongly believe that they would give a tough run to McCain (my favourite) and fear that may eventually win in 2008. This does not totally eliminate their chances but atleast has knocked them down considerably. Nixon afer losing the Governor's race in California came back in 1968 but there were no heavy weights standing in 68 in his party. Now we go to 2008 - Dashboard , my favorite time pass in ranking the chances on both parties.