This is unlikely to be a direct re-run of the 1966 election for House and Senate. (This illustration is of the 1966 House races, from Wikipedia. Note the biggest Republican swings were in the Midwest.)
It’s going to be much, much worse for Republicans than that.
In 1966 Democrats lost 48 House seats and only 3 Senate seats. Such a result this time would give them a healthy House majority neutered by a Senate minority.
In that year, Democrats tried very hard to make Republicans the issue. They called them dangerous. They called them warmongers. They linked them to Joe McCarthy and Herbert Hoover. The trouble was both were dead.
Republicans this year at least have live villains. The problem is the claims don’t pass the smell test. And anger against the Bush Administration is becoming palpable. As angry as Republican rhetoric may be, Democratic rhetoric is angrier, and this is a new phenomenon. Even the Republican "Munich" argument is finally getting some serious push-back.
After a generation in which Democrats could only succeed as "yeah-but" Anti-Thesis politicians, the louder and more in-your-face Democrats are
starting to get the loudest cheers. While the Open Source Thesis has
yet to emerge (beyond this blog), I believe this is only a matter of
time.
At some point Democrats will have to stand for something, and the
values of this medium will be staring them in the face. Figure,
December.
The Republicans shouldn’t be counted out just yet. All those computerized voting machines with no paper trail capability, especially the ones made by the very pro-Bush Diebold, are the real elephant in the room.
They are so easy to rig it’s laughable, and the bonus is that there is no way to prove the rigging.
I live in Florida. I chose John Kerry for President, and my electronic voting machine immediately recorded a vote for Bush. I immediately voiced a very loud protest, and it took some angry talk on my part to get the vote cleared and the machine able to record the vote I actually made, not the one Jeb, Katherine and the other bastards wanted inserted.
I spoke with a Democratic poll watcher outside and voiced my annoyance with those ham-handed tactics to steal an election, and she told me that several people had said the same thing to her that day.
So, don’t discount the possibility of dirty pool, or the very real possibility of an engineered terror threat or attack just before the election.
The current administration has a lot hanging on this election. A Democratic takeover of the House could mean impeachment proceedings within weeks, as well as the possibility of Bush and the gang being tried for war crimes.
Desperate people do desperate things, especially when most of the American people aren’t paying very much attention.
This is probably our last chance to defeat the slide into facism and Empire that we’re headed toward. Let’s hope that Americans shows a little bit more intelligence than they usually do.
The Republicans shouldn’t be counted out just yet. All those computerized voting machines with no paper trail capability, especially the ones made by the very pro-Bush Diebold, are the real elephant in the room.
They are so easy to rig it’s laughable, and the bonus is that there is no way to prove the rigging.
I live in Florida. I chose John Kerry for President, and my electronic voting machine immediately recorded a vote for Bush. I immediately voiced a very loud protest, and it took some angry talk on my part to get the vote cleared and the machine able to record the vote I actually made, not the one Jeb, Katherine and the other bastards wanted inserted.
I spoke with a Democratic poll watcher outside and voiced my annoyance with those ham-handed tactics to steal an election, and she told me that several people had said the same thing to her that day.
So, don’t discount the possibility of dirty pool, or the very real possibility of an engineered terror threat or attack just before the election.
The current administration has a lot hanging on this election. A Democratic takeover of the House could mean impeachment proceedings within weeks, as well as the possibility of Bush and the gang being tried for war crimes.
Desperate people do desperate things, especially when most of the American people aren’t paying very much attention.
This is probably our last chance to defeat the slide into facism and Empire that we’re headed toward. Let’s hope that Americans shows a little bit more intelligence than they usually do.