Can the Democrats Take the House?
John Hinderaker at PowerLine Blog asks an interesting question:
Can the Democrats Take the House?
America once had a two-party system that kept the Republicans as the loyal opposition in Congress. They learned how to play that role. They had no choice because the majority could gerrymander safe districts for their party.
Today the Democrats are the opposition and they appear to be unwilling to play the role. They lost more seats when the Texas Republicans gerrymandered them out of office.
The RealClear Politics poll indicates that Congress has an approval rating of 33.3% (9-13 to 10-5 2005) and a disapproval rating of 55.7%. The best that Congress could muster this year was a 45% approval in a January LA Times poll.
Apparently the voter doesn’t think much about Congressional activities. Could it be that Congress has turned into a political organ that only pays lip service to the citizens while playing to their political base?
Not since we had the Contract With America have Congressional campaigns been nationalized. Campaigns have returned to everything local; more money for the local highway, a new Veterans Home (great idea), water projects, and the like.
Whatever happened to the party of ideas; the party of FDR and LBJ? Leadership, or the lack of same thereof, is the only answer. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi? Zero vision but great distorters of the facts.
The problem for the Democrats is that a national campaign plan would be so large that the public would get lost in the table of contents. Take a moment to think about the number of subsets the Dems would have to include in their plan for poverty, race, gender, taxes , and environment. It would take an hour of 30-second sound bites to get their message out.
PowerLine Blog reports that less than 40 Congressional seats are competitive in 2006 while there were about 106 in 1994.
Democrats could pick up seats in border states if the party could simply find a border security (immigration) plan that the majority of their party will support. This is unlikely.
Democrats could pick up seats if there is low voter turnout. This is possible because the Republican base is not that happy (simply read the conservative blogs). This isn’t likely to work either because the concept depends upon the Democrats having an issue that will get their base out to vote and not energize the Republicans.
Democrats could depend upon the Avian Flu as an issue. According to The Radio Equalizer, Air America’s Randi Rhodes believes that the Democrats do have a plan in this area – they are in Asia studying the problem. That is nice but how many M.D.s are their on the Dems side in Congress? Another boondoggle!
John at PowerLine Blog states that “Democrats are still pinning their hopes on their silly ‘culture of corruption’ theme.” This is silly because Senator Corzine (D), who is running for Governor of New Jersey, apparently is in bed with a union leader and Senator “Privacy Rights” Schumer (D NY) has a credit report that doesn’t belong to him. The Senate Minority Leader Reid (D NV) may have his own ethical problems.
The Senator Frist’s SEC problem will likely be dead by year end because the public will find out that he started the process of disposing of his HCA stocks months before the actual transaction.
Ronnie Earle will implode again and Tom DeLay will be free (if he doesn’t get his case dismissed soon he will probably not return to his previous leadership position).
My suggestion to the Democrats is to develop a macro-plan that generally addresses constituent issues and doesn’t upset the Republican base - keep them home). The plan should be positive without adding new programs to the mix (the budget is two and one-half times larger than Reagan’s and there are more than enough programs to fix the world). Make it simple so that the media can understand it. By doing this you can use MoveOn.Org and the other radical national and local websites to help you out with the hate speech.
In the end, does it really make any difference?
Can the Democrats Take the House?
America once had a two-party system that kept the Republicans as the loyal opposition in Congress. They learned how to play that role. They had no choice because the majority could gerrymander safe districts for their party.
Today the Democrats are the opposition and they appear to be unwilling to play the role. They lost more seats when the Texas Republicans gerrymandered them out of office.
The RealClear Politics poll indicates that Congress has an approval rating of 33.3% (9-13 to 10-5 2005) and a disapproval rating of 55.7%. The best that Congress could muster this year was a 45% approval in a January LA Times poll.
Apparently the voter doesn’t think much about Congressional activities. Could it be that Congress has turned into a political organ that only pays lip service to the citizens while playing to their political base?
Not since we had the Contract With America have Congressional campaigns been nationalized. Campaigns have returned to everything local; more money for the local highway, a new Veterans Home (great idea), water projects, and the like.
Whatever happened to the party of ideas; the party of FDR and LBJ? Leadership, or the lack of same thereof, is the only answer. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi? Zero vision but great distorters of the facts.
The problem for the Democrats is that a national campaign plan would be so large that the public would get lost in the table of contents. Take a moment to think about the number of subsets the Dems would have to include in their plan for poverty, race, gender, taxes , and environment. It would take an hour of 30-second sound bites to get their message out.
PowerLine Blog reports that less than 40 Congressional seats are competitive in 2006 while there were about 106 in 1994.
Democrats could pick up seats in border states if the party could simply find a border security (immigration) plan that the majority of their party will support. This is unlikely.
Democrats could pick up seats if there is low voter turnout. This is possible because the Republican base is not that happy (simply read the conservative blogs). This isn’t likely to work either because the concept depends upon the Democrats having an issue that will get their base out to vote and not energize the Republicans.
Democrats could depend upon the Avian Flu as an issue. According to The Radio Equalizer, Air America’s Randi Rhodes believes that the Democrats do have a plan in this area – they are in Asia studying the problem. That is nice but how many M.D.s are their on the Dems side in Congress? Another boondoggle!
John at PowerLine Blog states that “Democrats are still pinning their hopes on their silly ‘culture of corruption’ theme.” This is silly because Senator Corzine (D), who is running for Governor of New Jersey, apparently is in bed with a union leader and Senator “Privacy Rights” Schumer (D NY) has a credit report that doesn’t belong to him. The Senate Minority Leader Reid (D NV) may have his own ethical problems.
The Senator Frist’s SEC problem will likely be dead by year end because the public will find out that he started the process of disposing of his HCA stocks months before the actual transaction.
Ronnie Earle will implode again and Tom DeLay will be free (if he doesn’t get his case dismissed soon he will probably not return to his previous leadership position).
My suggestion to the Democrats is to develop a macro-plan that generally addresses constituent issues and doesn’t upset the Republican base - keep them home). The plan should be positive without adding new programs to the mix (the budget is two and one-half times larger than Reagan’s and there are more than enough programs to fix the world). Make it simple so that the media can understand it. By doing this you can use MoveOn.Org and the other radical national and local websites to help you out with the hate speech.
In the end, does it really make any difference?
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