2006-10-23

Kick 'em when they're down...

Four years ago at about this time, the Democrats were looking forward to making gains in Congress. Sure, they didn't have a platform and much of their leadership was grating on the ear, but tbey were against Bush in every politically safe way they could be.

Lo and behold, the first Tuesday after the First Monday in November came along and the gains that they were expecting somehow failed to materialize. What lesson did they gleam from this situation? Well, in the House, they did get rid of the Minority Leader, Dick Gephardt, blaming his ineffective leadershipp as the reason that they had such a disappointing election. After this bloodless coup dispensing of their leader, the House Democrats were left with a choice to fill the void of leadership- they could get a mock-moderate who could actually be reasonable in the guise of Harold Ford of Tennessee, or go for the loony leftists by picking Nancy Pelosi for their top position. Choosing Pelosi just seemed to be a sign that the Democrats weren't a mainstream party any longer, and that they did not feel the need to bring alternative ideas to the table.

Two years later, after a close presidential election, the Democrats still did not have control of the Senate. (This is probably as good a place as any to point out that one of the front-runners in the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination was Dick Gephardt. What kind of thought process leads a person who was forced out of his leadership position because he was ineffective at motivating a group that was at least nominally in agreement with him into believing that he was the man to ascend to the Presidency, a job that requires the cobbling together of coalitions with those whose interests are usually at odds with your own? When Gephardt was replaced as House Minoity Leader, most rational societies would have seen that as a big-time signal that a run at the Presidency should be out of the question, but Gephardt, and many Democrat pundits, took the fact that he was found incompetant as a leader to be a great good fortune because it meant he could take more time to campaign.)

Back on topic- Here we find ourselves in the autumn of 2006, and the Democrats are looking forward to taking over control of the House and possibly the Senate too. The word on the street all summer has been that the Democrats would be taking over in December, and the buzz is all around the internet to talk radio to cable news that the Dems are going to have a good year. James Carville, the Democrat pundit and campaigner, has said that if the Dems don't take over Congress in this current environment, then they might as well fold up their tent as a party. (I guess that he forgot the stupid phrase he coined about the economy.) Charles Rangall of New York has stated that he would resign if the Dems don't take the House. But what if...

What happens if the Democrats don't take over? Who gets to be the scapegoat this time? Will the Democrats throw Pelosi under the bus? Who would take over for her? Will the Democrats learn their lesson and get an actual moderate to take her place, or would they find another moonbat like Murtha to fill the bill? Some conservative columnists, such as John Derbyshire of the National Review, have stated that a Republican loss on election day could actually force them to re-evaluate and more closely adhere to their core conservative principles. Does anybody think that a Democrat failure in November would force them to reconsider their outlook and bring them away from the far left leanings that are hurting the country as much as they are hurting their party?