November 08, 2006
Take It Like A Man
12:05 am Update: If the comments at Postman's blog, or the posts at the NW Progressive Institute Blog tonight are any guide, assorted liberals are not showing the class in victory I hope Republicans and readers of Sound Politics will show in defeat.
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[Original post at 11:26 pm]
Alright, short post here. This is a bad night for Republicans nationally, even worse here in Washington state (blue states in general have turned into a nightmare this year for Republicans). I have no idea what will happen in the Reichert race though, here are the returns thus far. I'd be lying, however, if I said trends nationally and locally thus far make me feel chipper.
I ask this of Sound Politics readers: Be mature, take it like an adult. We just ran into a buzz saw of a mid-term election in a President's 6th year, coupled with an unpopular foreign conflict. Add to that some bad news stories in the last weeks of the campaign and that's a tough road indeed. On one hand we get to watch Democrats try to run the House, which has its potential long-term advantages. Democrats now actually have to lead, have an agenda, propose legislation, etc. On the other, the antics of the netroots may not be so fun, regardless of the fact Lamont and Goldmark are going down in flames.
If this was TV I'd tip my hat to the Democrats. Heck, I might even pull a James Carville and put a trash can on my head, as was done in 2002 when Republicans swept several close Senate races (scroll down at this link to see a video cap).
Now about that little Presidential contest in 2008...
Posted by Eric Earling at November 08, 2006
12:12 AM | Email This
1. "Stand for something," James Carville said. That was the lesson he said Democrats should take from the disastrous midterm elections yesterday.
They learned their lesson. Now will we learn ours?
2. Eric
Don't worry, my childish frustrations have disipated. I now have expectations of those who are "In Charge".....
I want to remain SAFE, still make MONEY, and not be raped by the future goverment, both federal and state.
I doubt all those promises can be kept, but hey, the Dem's believe it.....
3. I can be an adult about this. But I still don't appreciate my legal vote being cancelled out by an illegal one. But if that's the only way they can win, then so be it.
4. but there is one good thing out of this: If the Democrats take over the house etc...a lot of this whining will stop...and therefore the David Goldstein Show is no longer necessary...and Mr. HA will get quietly fired.... which hopefully will help some of his followers to think a bit for themselves. There is hope afterall :-)
5. I will take it like a man, but I am woeful of what's ahead. This country and the state is going to be in a tailspin like never seen before. The additional tax for the expanded bus is just a very small step toward that direction. Be very, very afraid of the tax man.
In my view, common sense has been replaced with insanity, and the provervial common sense is no longer a common sense. Maybe, a big maybe, the Republicans may have to start the offense that would put that of Democrats to shame.
6. Hey, now I know how the libertarians must feel after each election (well, except for the drug use part of it).
7. Conservatives should rejoice that the US Congress (House / Senate) will be functionally gridlocked, which protects us peons better than single party control.
Thank gawd for GRIDLOCK !!!!
8. From a 2008 perspective this may not all be bad news. Now the Democrats will have to fight their natures to tax, spend and focus on anti-Bush policies that would really push this nation in the wrong direction. More importantly, seeing Democrats back in a position where they actually have to propose legislation and adopt it is going to lift the veil they have been hiding under in their anti-Bush obstruction agenda since 2000.
If conservatives really want the American people to see who these Democrats are, and in such a way that not even a biased liberal media can cover it up, we are about to get the real contrast between the parties coming into the 2008 presidential election. All of those Americans that voted against Republicans without caring who they were replacing them with are about to get a clear view of the liberal agenda from the Congress from both barrels!
9. It will be interesting to see if the GOP's disastrous results in Washington State are due to a strong turnout by the Dem faithful, or strong disenchantment with GOP candidates by the right. What d'ya think about that SP'ers?
10. Yes, it's a hard pill to swallow, but we have to deal with the cards we've been dealt like it or not. We must also learn from our mistakes, so as not to repeat them.
Let us sit back and see what the new powers that be do with it. Let us see if they actually have and execute a plan and where that takes us. Let us see if years down the road people say they are better off than they were before. Let us see if middle America reaps the continuously promised benefits and relief they are promised by the left. Let us see if small businesses continue to thrive. Let us see if our children receive the elusively promised "education they deserve" and if the public school systems are funded and succeed. Let us see if we have less homeless/poor years down the road. Let us see what happens with the health care system. Let us see what happens with foreign policies.
We shall see.......
11. I was watching Northwest Cable News, and noticing how many of the races the AP has already "called" as being won by Democrats, in some cases with only 30% of the votes counted, and only 10 percentage points separating the candidates...can't they just keep quite until it's all over?
Maybe I'm just aggravated by Republican losses, but even if we were winning more of the races, I would still think it prudent to be quiet and not call races until at least 90% of the votes (or more) were in.
12. George W get that rubber VETO stamp ready,it is going to be a long and unproductive 2 years.
13. This is the best thing that could possibly happen. We will now have Gridlock, assuming Bush has the guts to use his veto power and the Dems hate Bush enough to not go along with his spending, which would really take some gut checking on their part.
14. But wait a minute, if there is Gridlock, won't the left and the liberal media find some way to twist things around and make it Bush's fault?
15. Lessons for (R):
3 - do not tolerate crooks, creeps or slimebags. If a member of the party has fishy dealing with lobbyists or family members, or is too interested in teenaged pages, kick them out of the party. Don't worry about whether you'll hold that seat or not - you'll loose far more other seats when the scandal breaks, and it will break because the media is against you. Republicans can't hide their indiscretions, so learn to deal with them quickly and honorably.
2 - Mean what you say. Don't just stand for something, deliver on it. If you stand for smaller government, then make the government smaller. If you stand for tax cuts, cut them. Permanently. Don't talk big and swing a toothpick.
2a - (Corollary to meaning what you say): Pick what you stand for carefully. Don't tilt at windmills assuming you can ignore them after the election. That costs you during the first election since you'll be painted as scary extremists, and (if you win) it costs you during the second election because the fringe you motivated with your talk bails on you because you didn't deliver. Eventually you pile up enough negatives that you can't win, because people vote based on fear (fear you will do what you say among moderates and fear you won't among your own fringe). You need to pick the three most important issues the country faces (that government can solve), establish a position, create a plan, and execute on the plan relentlessly. Members of the caucus that stray off the plan are treated as #3 above.
1 - Always, always, always explain what you are doing and why. Keep explaining what your plan, your progress, and your adjustments are until you are sure the electorate is bored to death hearing it. This prevents your opponents, who own the media, from painting you as failures. Of course, you need to do 2 and 2a or you will paint yourself as failures.
Do these things and you will win.
16. Eric, I'm not sure why you were expecting class from the other side. Look at HA; that's the culture they swim in over there.
17. "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it." - G.W. Bush, Nov 4, 2004
Now that's real class in victory.
18. Roscha, nothing wrong with that statement W made. Now if you ask me about Kerry's "joke", THAT was a problem...
19. It won't be long before Pelosi and company will be blaming Bush for blocking their more goofy legislation. And you will hear "mandate of the people" from that bunch as many times as they will insist tax increases will solve the problem of the day.
That said, it is time for the Republicans to take a good hard look at things. The weak stance on smaller government and the even weaker stance on spending needs to change. Quite frankly, many voters don't look beyond the surface of a situation, so when a Republican controlled congress is spending like a Democrat controlled congress, said voters aren't going to think there is any real difference between the two major parties.
On the upside, Arnold zoomed to victory, which will be important for the 2008 elections, and Tennessee voted for Corker instead of Ford. Considering the attention span of the public, perhaps conservative candidates would do well to do commercials like the one that Ford didn't like. The commercial was entertaining, summed up Ford's stance on various issues, and was just controversial enough to get widespread press.
And, as before, give the democRats enough rope, and they will hang themselves. The antics of Bubba and his liberal controlled congress set the stage for Republican dominance far longer than the liberals ever thought possible. And inspite of their missteps along the way, a Republican president and congress were in the right place at the right time for 9/11. Without the swift response to that threat, griping about Pelosi would be the least of our worries.
20. Another Defeat for the Mainstream Republicans of Washington State. You can't beat the Democrats by being practically just like them. You need to offer real change like they did in 1994 with the Contract with America.
Due to the National Situation perhaps no Republican could have beat Cantwell this year, but I bet that Susan Hutchinson could have done much better than McGavick did.
Stop chasing good conservative candidates away from running for office and we will achieve victory.
21. "Class" doesn't cut it in the rough contact sport of politics. I have seen too many good people go down in political defeat because they had this so called "Class".
If you aren't angry then you aren't serious about what you believe. If you don't want to get down and dirty to fight for what you believe then you are useless and should stay out of the political arena.
"Class" is for losers. In the end we must find candidates who are FIGHTERS not ones who are ladies and gentlement.
These next two years will be painful indeed. If the Republicans learn from this, chase out the RINOS Evans-Republican types, and return to the grassroots, then it all will not be for vain. If not, then I guess we will see more and more of our candidates who are full of "class".
22. John, I think you spoke very well. I would reinforce #1...any Repub and/or conservative needs to understand what he/she thinks, why they think it, and be willing to sell it every day.
If an officeholder isn't, they won't be an officeholder long as a Republican or conservative.
W showed during the campaigns that he could sell his ideas and policies. He needed to keep selling them but didn't.
23. Among other things, I fear this election nightmare will make it more difficult to rid WA of the illegitimate Queen.
Among other things, my hope is that Pelosi, et al will continue to BE Pelosi. et al.
America is about to get a very painful, 2 year long slap in the face.
24. In individual races, democrat challengers won, but I do not believe this was a deliberate choice by voters to give dems the House. Politics is local, and while partisan activists may have voted for the sake of party power, it seems more likely that the bulk of the electorate was not thinking about that.
25. The only thing that's not making me ultra depressed right now is knowing that Reichert won. Honestly, I feel much like I did on that late Tuesday night when Bill Clinton got elected in 1992. I just couldn't believe how the entire nation could get so horribly duped like that. But then the entire nation got to watch what it was like to let the Dems have a rubber stamp and 1994 happened.
I just am irritated that Republicans only got control for 12 years. Democrats had control of Congress for 40 years straight. They owe us another 28 years. But alas, life is not fair....
26. ferrous, 1992 was the trifecta- Clinton, Lowry and Murray.
27. I also want to say that I believe that a lot of conservatives stayed home. I think that was the big culprit here, honestly. At my polling station in Covington, it's usually a filled up parking lot with lines to vote. There were hardly any cars there last night when I voted at about 6 pm, a prime time to hit the polls. I know that a lot of people do absentee, but the polls still draw a fair number of people who don't mess with absentee. And given that my neighborhood is fairly conservative and seeing that Marcy managed to get 49%!, it definitely leads me to believe that conservatives that usually vote stayed home and didn't bother this time. I hope they are happy with themselves in 2010 when they see their taxes go up a bunch.
Eric, you have to at least allow us a day to mourn. I know it's not the end of the world. This nation is very resilient. We survived Pres. Carter and a liberal Congress for crying out loud, we can survive a modest majority by Dems in the House (and I'm so hoping they don't turnover the Senate).
28. I couldn't help but notice that the closest races, and the seats taken in the Senate by the D's were represented by fairly conservative D's. I think that the D's realized that most of the country is not really that liberal, and they adjusted their rhetoric and campaigns appropriately. The most riveting question is, can we believe them? I guess we'll see in the next two years.
29. Conservatives didn't turn out for Luke Esser or Toby Nixon either. Neither candidate is a RINO. The whole argument that if somehow we nominate even more conservative candidates in this state that it will sway the people who vote overwhelmingly for people with a (D) after their name is foolish. The only way the GOP will win here is for things to get much worse before they get better.
30. Come on, you write a post entitled "Take it like a man", hoping that liberals are gracious winners and conservatives are gracious losers, then you complain about the liberal posters on two other sites for not showing class, yet completely ignore the ranting of conservatives here. THEN I see your post calling liberals "Republican hater(s)". Practice what you preach Earling. Take it like a man.
31. In 1994 there was widespread dissatisfaction with Democrats who passed the largest tax increase in American history after campaigning that the middle class would get a tax cut. They lied and that was the backlash.
The only way conservatives will win here in WA is for a similar level of widespread dissatisfaction to happen again. In any regular year, running someone further to the right won't matter, they will lose just as McGavick, Esser and Nixon did.
The Democrats have plenty of rope in Olympia now. If they pass gay marriage and an income tax, that will be their one way ticket out the door in '08.
32. I think that the D's realized that most of the country is not really that liberal, and they adjusted their rhetoric and campaigns appropriately
True, but most of the leadership is in the far-left wing. What will be interesting is to see how much clout the moderates will carry.
33. Predictions for the next 2 years.
Democrats will continue to see Bush as the enemy instead of Bin Laden. The congress will vote to impeach him rather than focus on the real war.
With the Patriot Act gutted, there will be another large scale attack on American Soil.
Iraq will fall into the hands of terrorists and will ultimately be controlled by Iran.
N. Korea and Iran will possess nuclear weapons by the time Bush leaves office.
Embryonic stem cell research will still have yielded zero cures for anything.
Rush Limbaugh will survive an attempt to muzzle right wing radio talk shows.
Tax cuts gone, the economy will go into the dumper.
After all the above for 2 years, Republicans will regain the Senate.
34. Scott C and Palouse seem to be advocating a very liberal-like political agenda of hoping things will get really bad so our side will look good by comparison. That is so wrong-headed. Our side is good, plain and simply, and the sooner we stop playing with pragmatic politicians like Scott and Palouse, the better for our side's chances of winning. The Democrats seem to be catching on to that, why can't the Republicans?
35. I'm not advocating it. It's a PREDICTION, look it up. I won't like seeing it any more than you will. But you give Democrats too much credit. Their whole political strategy was to not just predict a failure in Iraq, but to actually facilitate the failure. They knew they couldn't win if things went well in Iraq. So did the enemy. The Democrats became the enemy's key partner in their strategy to win. Did you not read the story about a high ranking terrorist hoping for a Democrat victory? It will be interesting to see if the insurgency is emboldened by their victory in our election, or will slack off on the bombings and murders. My guess is they'll be emboldened.
So what are you trying to say Huck? That we should roll over and reject our own values and positions for a more "moderate" view. That's what got us where we are. Conservatives aren't angry about using too much force in Iraq. They're upset we didn't use enough to win decisively. Democrats were just pissed they're not running the war so came out against it. I don't think they really care if we're there or not, as long as they're in charge.
36. Scott, all I am saying is that conservatives must take no satisfaction in the destruction that will be caused by liberal majorities. We must be critical of bad liberal ideas. Our few remaining representatives must vote No on principle, and resist the urge to trade their votes because "the Dem's were going to win, anyway." I am not sure sending more troops to Iraq is a good idea. I don't think a "friendly" Iraqi government exists yet, or can survive without the presence of American troops. But I think we are about to find out. And unlike 1975, this time we conservatives must hold the libs accountable for the genocide that their visionary politics breeds. That is all we can do until and unless we can build a solid majority within a mainstream political party. And that is something that too many SP'ers resist.
37. Scott C and Palouse seem to be advocating a very liberal-like political agenda of hoping things will get really bad so our side will look good by comparison.
Wrong again huck. I'm not hoping things will go bad, I am merely saying that liberals will have their chance to shape policy and taxes in Washington, and if (when) their policies produce a negative result, which may take years, then the GOP will have a chance to win. Then, and only then, will running someone further to the right be successful in this state.
The Democrats may choose to accelerate this process by passing gay marriage and an income tax in the next couple of years. Otherwise, it might take longer.
38. I guess my challenge to Scott and Palouse is to actively oppose the liberals in their efforts to further screw things up. To see vindication and victory in disaster is just not a wise course to follow. I am not sure they agree with me on that.
39. Sure huck, we can actively oppose the libs while they screw things up. I am not opposed to pointing out when they are going wrong, and saying how conservatives would do it. The conservatives, including Toby Nixon, did a decent job of this pointing out what an unsustainable budget that Gregoire passed. A few in the MSM even picked up on it.
40. The one thing the Dems have always had going for them is the mainstream media. They have been able to oppose everything and anything the GOP put up, and the media was their propaganda branch. If the GOP was to try this, it would be lambasted as "obstructionist" and soundly defeated in every election post 2006. One thing the GOP can't do is be too supportive of the Dems in their zeal. If they do, when things DO go bad, the libs will be pointing fingers at the GOP saying "well, they voted for it too". Again, the GOP said "they voted for the war" and the mainstream media said nothing about the hypocracy of the Dems anti-war election strategy. The GOP doesn't have that luxury. It has to be done by letting them do what they're going to do, and let the American people decide if that's a good thing.
Case in point: Hillary care. That one issue scared the crap out of the country and resulted in the loss of the House and Senate by Dems. We will not be able to stop much of what the Dems want to do. Bush could veto everything, but does he really want to? It seems unlikely. He's a dealer. The Senate stood in the way of his immigration plan. Now the Dems will run it to him the first week of their majority. And Bush will sign it and we'll all have pleanty of fresh fruit at low prices. But is that what most Americans wanted? No. Most wanted the flood of illegal immigrants stopped. The social disaster that will result in the policy will be entirely the fault of Democrats and a lame duck non-conservative outgoing President. That's something a conservative can RUN on.
41. First of all, I respect Dave Reichert as a law enforcement officer. I voted twice for him to be sheriff even though I think the King County Police functioned better with an appointed sheriff. I do think it is a rather tense time for two sides who worked their tails off for their candidates. I think Darcy has shown the passion to serve more than Reichert. This thing about not having experience is crap. If a Republican came through with the same resume but espousing your beliefs, you would embrace him. The experience thing is just a reason you have drummed up to justify hating Darcy.
42. That's a chapter right out of the Michelle Malkin playbook. Pick out a few idiots to which the extremes on both sides have and ignore the well written responses.
Beside, how congenial would you be if you were crapped on the 12 years?