As per usual, Molly Ivins nails it

POST-ELECTION ETIQUETTE

AUSTIN, Texas -- The sheer pleasure of getting lessons in etiquette from Karl Rove and the right-wing media passeth all understanding. Ever since 1994, the Republican Party has gone after Democrats with the frenzy of a foaming mad dog. There was the impeachment of Bill Clinton, not to mention the trashing of both Clinton and his wife -- accused of everything from selling drugs to murder -- all orchestrated by that paragon of manners, Tom DeLay.

Media Matters collected some gems of fairness. For instance, Monica Crowley with MSNBC, in the wake of John Kerry's botched program, astutely observed "how lucky we are that he was not elected president. ... The Republicans remain the grown-ups, the responsible ones on national security."

How many dead Americans has this grown-up war resulted in?

And how darling of Fox's Juan Williams, upon learning polls show the people favor Democrats on taxes, to say, "To me, that's crazy."

And how many times did Chris Matthews use the Republican talking points about Nancy Pelosi? Extremist, uncooperative, incapable, unwilling to work with the president.

So after 12 years of tolerating lying, cheating and corruption, the press is prepared to lecture Democrats on how to behave with bipartisan manners.

Given Bush's record with the truth, this bipartisanship sounds like a bad idea on its face. Go back to the first year of the administration, when Bush double-crossed Ted Kennedy in the No Child Left Behind Act. Think about it: You've said at the outset of your administration that you need cooperation to get anything done. Then you double-cross one of the senior senators of the other party when your re-education and labor agenda is dependent on him?

These people are not only dishonest -- they're not even smart. Not that I recommend nailing them at every turn, but I wouldn't be surprised if they try to do it to Democrats. If what Republicans have been practicing is bipartisanship, West Texas just flooded.

O.K., here's what the D's have going for them. New kids. Easy, popular first moves -- for example, increasing the minimum wage. Republicans so inept that it's painful. You want to look at some really, really basic legislation, try fixing the Medicare prescription drug bill. Or the bankruptcy bill. Or new dollar and trade policies.

Then we get to the real meat of this election. There are all manner of shuffle steps and politically shrewd thing for the D's to do. But now is not the time to be clever. The Democrats won this election because we are involved in a disastrous war. We know how to do this: Declare victory, and go home.

I noticed when Republicans are forced to talk about how to end this, they tend to announce that it's all hopeless: They have no ideas at all. Thanks, guys. Of all the options, I would say splitting Iraq into three states is least advisable. First, it puts us in the position of screwing the Kurds once again. Second, Turkey has serious objections to a Kurdistan. Third, Turkey is not a militia. Fourth, then you give Iran and Saudi Arabia a pawn apiece. And there'd be an unimaginable amount of future hassle.

Do I have any good ideas? Yes, but it's not a solution. We need to start the Middle East peace process again. Because it's the right thing to do. Because it's what Bush should have done to begin with. Because we have to start somewhere.

Molly Ivins
COPYRIGHT 2006 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Originally Published on Thursday November 9, 2006

Allen should concede

It's a strange day indeed when I am in agreement with the folks over at the Red State dot org blog; normally I find all their opinions barking mad. But then again, what the hell is ordinary about a day like today?

Webb is ahead and his lead is holding steady at about 8000 votes. This is too many for a recount to make up. It's over. We have, in effect, kicked George Felix's soft teeth down his whining throat, to borrow some of the senators own violent imagery.

Allen may be refusing to concede, but that has not stopped Webb from declaring victory.

At 2 a.m., according to unofficial results tallied by the state of Virginia, Webb had a lead of 4,745 votes over Allen. With 2,433 out of 2,443 precincts reporting Webb had 1,162,004 votes and Allen had 1,157,259 votes.
Just after 1 a.m., Webb claimed victory. "The votes are in and we won," he told his supporters. Webb had appeared before his supportes about two hours earlier and predicted he would win.

"We've been following this in great detail," Webb said, "It looks very, very good for our side." He said he expected to pick up votes in the 11th Congressional District in Northern Virginia and that his campaign was confident that he'd do very well when the absentee ballots were counted.

"It's going to take a while, but at some point soon, I think we are going to be on top," Webb said.

Virginia has a Democratic Senator, one who will ably represent the citizens of that state and who knows first hand how decisions made by politicians affect military personnel. He will fight for what is right, whether it is popular or not.

And Jim Webb will work to bring an end to the insanity of the Iraq war. He has skin in the game.

Entering the home stretch

Coming 'round the bend, with just eight days to go, the Democrats are strong and the Republicans have fallen back, just hoping to stanch the bleeding. The House is gone and the Senate is in peril. The issues they have counted on for leverage with the electorate are no longer theirs at all, much less theirs alone. In every single category that prospective voters were polled on, Republicans trail Democrats in the public trust; save on the issue of terrorism, where the public has equal confidence in both parties.

Democrats need to be tough and vigilant. The Republicans are going negative out of desperation, and it is getting ugly. Remember, they are the party of Lee Atwater, and while I normally hate to speak ill of the dead...I'll just say Karma can be a bitch.

But as Colbert says, facts have a well-known liberal bias, and facts are ruling the day this election. Negativity seems to have a blowback effect that they didn't expect, and the national party has gone so far in a couple of races that they have actually damaged their candidates. Anyone else notice that those horrible Progress for America ads have gone the way of the Edsel? (And not a moment too soon.) Fearmongering isn't working? All I can say is "Finally!"

And it doesn't matter how they try to shift the focus away from Iraq, it remains the yellow elephant in the room.

Keep up the pressure, Democrats. Man phone banks, canvas, donate to campaigns, light candles...whatever you can do. There is too much at stake. Defeat is not an option.

It looks like a whole lot of people have had enough

If the election were tomorrow, the Democrats would pick up 35 seats in the House and at least 4 seats in the Senate, possibly the 6 they need to have a majority, and with it, cloture.

The political climate today is worse for the incumbent majority than it was in 1994 when the Republicans took over. Independent political researcher Stuart Rothenberg predicts "a Democratic wave" on November 7.

Charlie Cook, publisher of The Cook Political Report, was more specific. He predicted this weekend that Republicans are most likely to see a net loss of 20 to 35 seats in the House, and with them their majority in the lower chamber.

In the Senate, according to Cook, Republicans were poised to lose at least four, but possibly five or six seats.

The list of most endangered Republican senators included Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Conrad Burns of Montana.

They could easily be joined by Jim Talent of Missouri and George Allen of Virginia, who are fighting for their political lives in very tight races, analysts said.

These poll numbers had Bush on the campaign trail, but one has to wonder about the length of his coattails when his approval rating is mired in the thirties. He "spiked" upward to 37% approval after consistently polling about 33% for several weeks running. But really, anything Bush can accomplish for the party looks like it will be too little, too late.

The economy, once the Republican parties ace-in-the-hole, Americans favor Democrats to manage things better by a 47 percent to 34 percent margin. Likewise, they have fallen out of favor as the part best able to deal with the threat of terrorism, having seen their strong lead turn into a statistical tie of 40 percent to 39 percent.

But the most stinging rebuke of all: By a 12 percent margin, Americans now trust Democrats rather than Republicans to handle Iraq. The Newsweek poll found 45percent of Americans trust Democrats on the prosecution of the war, versus 33 percent who favor the Republicans.

On broad policy issues, 53 percent of likely voters said they favored Democrats, to 39 percent Republican.

Victory is within reach, folks. In fact, at this point, it's ours to lose. We have nine days to put Claire McCaskill and Jim Webb over the top in Missouri and Virginia. Nancy Boyda has nine days to close the narrow, within-the-margin-of-error gap and unseat Jim Ryun in the Kansas-02. Nine days for Sara Jo Shettles to continue building her base to unseat Sam Graves in the Missouri-06.

This is our year. A whole lot of news was dumped in the Friday news cycle. If that was just the beginning, and this week gets worse for the Republicans, we get the Senate too. Hell, we may even have a majority of Governors Mansions.