If there is one thing politicians (Democratic and Republican) are GREAT at, it is sticking their feet in their mouth, pandering to the extremists of the party, the ones that scream and screech the loudest, and ignoring the moderates that make up the bulk of voters for either party.
From Broder:
It all adds up, Cole said, to a political environment reminiscent of 1992 -- a tough year for entrenched incumbents of both parties who suddenly saw their margins shrink or disappear. "The American people are rising up in disgust," Cole said, "and incumbents will pay. It's not anti-Republican anymore. It's anti-Washington."
Cole argues that the House Democratic leadership has made a strategic error by wielding its narrow majority to craft partisan bills that invite a Bush veto. That was the case with several resolutions to shorten the Iraq war, and it will be the case later this fall with a series of appropriations bills. Polarization is exactly what the voters hate, Cole said; they are looking for cooperation and agreement.
The screeching over this piece has already begun and yet with over a year to go before polls and opinion pieces even start to matter, we are left wondering, who will make the next fatal error.
He does make a point I have made here before though about Hillary Clinton.
She might just be the shoe in for the Democratic primary and that is the best news the GOP can have.
With her massive connections to crooks, (Hsu to name just one) corruption (NJ Mayor to name just one of her corrupt supporters), court cases where she will have to testify, her ability to pander to anyone and any time without regard to principle, her flip flopping and that fact that she already holds a 48% disapproval rating and most everyone already knows her name and has an "opinion" one way or another-- her supposed shoe in candidacy will probably be the most fatal error on the Democratic side before the 2008 elections.
Her disapproval ratings are higher than those of Sen. John Kerry in the days leading up to the 2004 election (45 percent) and Al Gore (42 percent) just prior to the 2000 presidential election.
"No one with her level of negativity has won the nomination, let alone let alone the White House," University of Texas political science professor Bruce Buchanan said.
Rove said on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday that Clinton will have a difficult time changing her public image, because so many people have already formed an opinion about her.
If the Republicans do not make an error of that size before then, Democrats will hand the election right to the GOP simply by making her the candidate of choice.
With that said, do not forget to stop by facebook and join "Stop Hillary Clinton (One Million Strong against Hillary)" which as of right now has 452, 671 members from both sides of the aisle and independents. (When I joined on September 25, 2007, there was only 421,000+, so you can see how that movement is growing fast).
Note to Tom Cole: Quit smiling, it is too early, but at least we, the GOP supporters, are not calling for the ouster of our party leaders, like the Democratic blogs are..
If they keep eating their own like this, then the GOP sure will be smiling by November 2008 with you Mr. Cole.
Example of what I mean by "eating their own":
Back in August Matt Stoller first floated the idea of a "Bush Dog" campaign against Democratic members of Congress who enable the right-wing through their support of Bush's policies on core progressive values at key moments.Now the campaign is in full flight. If you type "Bush Dog Democrat" you now get thousands of results. Profiles of all 38 House Bush Dogs have been completed. Among critics are the DLC, DSCC and insider news source National Jornal.
However it has been primarily focused on House Bush Dogs. However with a little research I found that Senate Bush Dogs are a much bigger problem.
They are right, a search for Bush Dog Democrats shows they are, indeed, eating their own and saving the GOP the trouble of having to do it for them....LOLOLOL
Ok, so I might be wrong, Tom Cole might just have a reason for a smirk at this time, but please, don't get cocky because we have a lot of work ahead of us.
.
