McDonnell As A Whipping Boy In The Midterms

I have a great idea for Democrats in tough midterm election races. I know many races will have a Tea Bagging candidate running far to the right, but other races in purple districts will have Republicans trying to masquerade as moderates so as not to scare off voters. If Democrats are smart they will us Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell as a whipping boy to run against those allegedly moderate Republicans. Pointing out that McDonnell also billed himself as a moderate and then immediately upon taking office showed himself to be a big time right winger going so far as to celebrate a Confederate History Month and then tying him to those moderates would be like found money. Not only will it get voters to look at them suspiciously, it will also force the moderates to take stances on very controversial subjects potentially pissing off their own right wing base. That's what's called going on the offensive and I hope some Democrats at least have the same thought.

Bob McDonnell Has A Joe Biden Problem

Bob McDonnell has been furiously trying to rebrand himself as a moderate as he tries to win the Virginia governors race. Unfortunately for him his ticket mate for attorney general Ken Cuccinelli sounds like a blogger at Red State. Here is what he had to say about President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Well, it's official, the Nobel Peace Prize is officially meaningless," Cuccinelli opened his Cuccinelli Compass newsletter to supporters Friday. He went on to quote commentator John Podhoretz about what Cuccinelli termed the "Nobel hilarity." Podhoretz argued that the win is not surprising because Obama represents the Nobel committee's highest ideals because he is "an American President queasy about the projection of American power."

"I suspect that whoever nominated him actually did it as a joke. And how about that, it really did turn out to be a joke," Cuccinelli concluded on the subject.

It will be interesting to see how McConnell tries to spin himself away from this kind of over the top right wing rhetoric. I am pretty sure that the people of Virginia do not share Cuccinelli's partisan views on the Nobel Peace Prize and if enough of them start to notice that this is the company McConnell is keeping they may wake up and realize that he is selling them a false bill of goods. If and when that happens you can expect those lofty numbers of his to take a preciptious slide but it is still up to Creigh Deeds to show himself to be something more than just "not McConnell". Unfortunately as weak kneed Democrats often do Deeds tried to put some air between himself and a very popular President at the first sign of President Obama's poll numbers slipping a little. If he was smart he would go running back like a prodigal sun and hug the hell out of Obama for the rest of his campaign.

Schism

This morning two prominent Republicans went on Sunday shows and dismissed the small tent philosphy embraced by both Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. Colin Powell and Tom Ridge, both military veterans, calmly and thoughtfully put forth their case for their visions of the Republican Party going forward. Now seeing as how neither man is in office or running for office they could speak their mind without having to carry water for the wingnut base. Now they didn't present the exact same case, but one thing was for certain with both of them. Neither man believed the Republican Party can make a comeback if they listen to people like Rush Limbaugh. Now here is the thing, Rush Limbaugh is one of the most polarizing people in America let alone inside the Republican Party. But right now the GOP is not just trying to shore up its base, its also trying to reach out to independents and people in the middle. That is a fight that normally they would be fighting against the Democrats but it turns out that it seem clear now that they will also be fighting for them within the party.

I believe that today is a watershed moment. There are now two totally conflicting views of the party and sooner or later people are going to have to chose. The reason for this is that the Rush Limbaugh wing of the party wants to expel the Colin Powell/Tom Ridge wing. But they aren't going anywhere and while they would never say publicly that Rushbo needs to haul his fat ass, I am sure privately they think HE is the one that needs to go. So who will the majority of Republicans back? Who will those independents who lean Republican line up behind? The truth is it doesn't matter what the numbers end up being. What matter is I think what we are seeing now are two irreconcilable wings of one party. So unless there is some kind of miraculous kum by yah moment it would seem that it is now the destiny of the Republican Party to fracture off into at least two separate entities. I don't know how soon the public split will happen but it would seem that the private split is already in play. I do believe that we need at least two viable political parties in this country as a form of checks and balances, but until the Republicans or Republican lites get their shit together, they won't have the capacity to fulfill that role. If I could hazard a guess I am betting when the moderate wing of the Republican Party emerges as something else, Colin Powell may just be their standard bearer.



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Its Going Down

I know several Republicans holding elected office have come out recently in support of Dick Cheney but as Colin Powell goes on "Face the Nation" tomorrow ostensibly to do some push back on his critics in the far right wing of the party including Cheney, will these same officials have to make a choice? Will they be made to choose between Powell's vision of the party going forward or Dick Cheney's? Remember Cheney himself said the other day "there is no middle ground".

Stay tuned because this may be the fight that ends up fracturing the party permanently.

Specter Switches Parties

Arlen Specter is now a Democrat. I wrote a diary on dailykos awhile back saying that Democratic leadership should have been trying to get him to cross the aisle after the stimulus vote. Per a statement read on MSNBC Senator Spector claims that he won't be an automatic 60th vote for cloture and that his vote on EFCA won't change. Well I am calling bullshit on that. He had to give up something for the Democratic leadership to allow him to cross the aisle instead of getting trounced in a Republican primary by uber wingnut Pat Toomey. We could have picked up the seat next year easily so there is no reason to allow him out of that blood bath unless some kind of compromise was made. I can tell you this much, if there ISN'T a compromise in place then Harry Reid should have his ass kicked. What's the use of allowing him to caucus with the Dems if he will still vote Republican? I will be optomistic for now, but if Specter is true to his word Harry Reid has GOT to go.

What The "Compromise" Really Means

dday explains it all a lot better than I ever could.