Board Republicans: Where did it all go wrong?

[French Souris]

:....clap

It is amazing to learn HISTORY from a different point of view.

I don't speak English well enough but I can speak for a frenchman, We
learned about trying to colonize Countries but it seems America tries
to want to make others in her image.

Vietnam was about the Cold War, Good guy vs bad guys and most
people were not as well informed as they are today.

[MannyIsGod]

I don't speak English well enough but I can speak for a frenchman, We
learned about trying to colonize Countries but it seems America tries
to want to make others in her image.

Vietnam was about the Cold War, Good guy vs bad guys and most
people were not as well informed as they are today.

This is very true, and I think most Americans understnad this. They feel we have the best country, so why shouldn't everyone wnat to be like us? Its a generalization, but I believe it fits the nationalism that most Americans feel.


I disagree that illegal immigrants won yesterday. Most of those democrats who won congressional seats did so on platforms that are tough on immigration.

That being said, the chances of congress actually doing anything about it are about as large as the chances of Allen finding 30,000 votes under his bed tomorrow.

[smeagol]

If you think illegal immigration is one of the biggest problems America has, you have no clue about reality.

[JoeChalupa]

I listened to the Lara Ingram show on Wednesday morning and she stated it correctly by saying that, "The Republicans got shalacked and I don't want to hear any conservative trying to spin it otherwise". She gave credit to a great campaign strategy and admitted that the conservative movement in the republican party caused them to lose touch with how most Americans felt about the Iraq war.
No need to spin it otherwise. They got beat and the American sent a message loud and clear. To think otherwise is denial.

[boutons_]

Here's "true" conservative's "scorecard" :

Keeping Score on Tuesday

By George F. Will
Sunday, November 5, 2006; B07

As ballpark vendors say, you can't enjoy the game without a scorecard. Here is one for Tuesday night.

? The election actually began four weeks ago with early voting. Passion drives turnout; anger is a passion; contentment is not. Is there anger at in bents generally, or only at Republican in bents? Two years ago 162 in bents in each party (78 percent of Republicans reelected and 87 percent of Democrats) won with at least 60 percent of the vote. Only 21 in bents won with 55 percent or less. Will these numbers -- and the 98.6 percent reelection rate for in bents since 1996 -- change dramatically? Stuart Rothenberg, an independent analyst, says that in the past 26 elections, dating to 1954, only three times (1956, 1990, 1992) have a total of at least six in bents in each party lost.

? Republicans Rob Simmons, Nancy Johnson and Chris Shays -- House members from Connecticut -- are vulnerable. If they lose, American politics will have become yet more "European," propelled by ideologically genous parties.

? In the 14 presidential elections starting with 1952, only once (1964) did Democrats win more than 50 percent of the suburban vote. Last May a Gallup Poll measured President Bush's approval among suburban voters at 29 percent . If Republicans are being rejected in suburbia, that will be apparent in two Pennsylvania districts, the 6th, held by a second-term Republican, Jim Gerlach, and the 7th, held by Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who is seeking an 11th term. Also, watch the open-seat contest -- the Republican in bent is running for governor -- in Colorado's 7th, just north of Denver.

? Florida's 22nd has one of the nation's best House members, Clay Shaw, who, if Republicans retain control of the House, will become chairman of the most consequential committee, Ways and Means. The 22nd has one of the nation's highest percentages of voters over the age of 65 -- 37 percent. In 2004 Shaw won with 63 percent, but he is in a close race, partly because many of his cons uents are irritable about their first encounter with the "doughnut hole" in Medicare's new prescription drug en lement: The government pays 75 percent of the first $2,250 in annual drug expenditures and 95 percent of expenditures over $5,100, but the individual must pay the cost between $2,250 and $5,100. Republicans hoped that the new en lement would purchase support from the elderly. If Shaw loses, that will be evidence for this axiom of politics in a welfare state: Any new en lement generates less gra ude for what is given than it does resentment for what is withheld.

? It is frequently said but infrequently true that Americans "vote their pocketbooks" -- that economic conditions determine their votes. In Michigan, however, economic determinism may prevail in the gubernatorial race, where Republican DeVos is challenging Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The state has two Democratic senators and has voted Democratic in four consecutive presidential elections. But Michigan's unemployment rate of more than 7 percent is far above the nation's 4.4 percent. Just three states are net losers of jobs in the past four years, and Michigan has lost the most. In August a jobs fair in Sterling Heights, featuring factory jobs at $10 an hour and no benefits, drew 4,000 applicants. If DeVos, energetic and well funded (partly by himself), cannot win, economic explanations of voting behavior should be interred.

? Four years ago all eight Mountain West states -- Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming -- had Republican governors. If Democrat Bill Ritter wins Colorado's governorship, Democrats will hold five of eight governorships in the Mountain West, which in the 1990s was even more reliably Republican than the South. In 2004 a change of a total of 63,508 votes in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico would have given those states' 19 electoral votes and the presidency to John Kerry. No wonder the Democrats' 2008 convention will probably be in Denver.

? Republicans will convene in Minneapolis, the largest city in "Minnewisowa." That neologism refers to the contiguous states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, which have 27 electoral votes. Pollster Peter Hart notes that every president elected since 1912 has won a plurality of the states along the Mississippi River. Illinois is the only one of those 10 states that is reliably Democratic. In 2004 Iowa, one of just three states to switch sides from 2000 (with New Hampshire and New Mexico), went for Bush. John Kerry narrowly won Wisconsin and Minnesota with 49.7 percent and 51.1 percent, respectively. If Minnesota's Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty is reelected, he goes on every Republican presidential candidate's shortlist of possible running mates.

There. A scorecard. Now, as ticket-takers say at ballpark turnstiles, enjoy the game.

[101A]

(Democrats Winning) != rebuke of Conservatism

(Democrats Winning) = rebuke of Republicans (even liberal ones)

Nothing more. This election was not about Liberal v. Conservative.

Name a SINGLE liberal position that was trumpeted far and wide to sweep Democrats to victory. The Iraq war got them their power; liberal idealism and big government programs, did not.

[boutons_]

"The Iraq war got them their power;"

That door swings both ways.

The Repugs started in the Iraq war as the "immediate and only option" to get dubya elected. "immediate" because they had to start to war in March and give it enough time to become"Mission Accomplished" well before the Nov 2003 election. dubya won as the "war president" in 2003 with the smallest margin ever for a winning in bent president.

With no Iraq war, there was a much better chance of dubya getting kicked out after 1 term, like his father.

[MannyIsGod]

If you think illegal immigration is one of the biggest problems America has, you have no clue about reality.

O Rly?

[101A]

"The Iraq war got them their power;"

That door swings both ways.

The Repugs started in the Iraq war as the "immediate and only option" to get dubya elected. "immediate" because they had to start to war in March and give it enough time to become"Mission Accomplished" well before the Nov 2003 election. dubya won as the "war president" in 2003 with the smallest margin ever for a winning in bent president.

With no Iraq war, there was a much better chance of dubya getting kicked out after 1 term, like his father.

I agree in theory, but I think Afghanistan would of been a bigger deal.

[boutons_]

I support/ed going after the Taleban as hosts of al Quaida.

I think the USA would had a hard time just stabilizing Afghanistan even without the Repugs going after Iraq. But the Repugs pulled priority and resources off Afghanistan to go into Iraq, much they way the the Bush 41 abandoned Afhanistan to the Taleban and al-Quaida after the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan.

Now the Repugs are losing both Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars half-done badly.

The Repugs can't do right, except when their is protecting/enriching the super-rich and the corps.

[101A]

I support/ed going after the Taleban as hosts of al Quaida.

I think the USA would had a hard time just stabilizing Afghanistan even without the Repugs going after Iraq. But the Repugs pulled priority and resources off Afghanistan to go into Iraq, much they way the the Bush 41 abandoned Afhanistan to the Taleban and al-Quaida after the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan.

Now the Repugs are losing both Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars half-done badly.

....

I agree with that, pretty much, and it's because of Afghanistan that Bush still could of run, and most likely won, as a "war" president in '03.

[DarkReign]

O Rly?

Cmon Manny, you know better than to use the phrase without the ridiculous looking owl.

[MannyIsGod]

You're so right.