My Lefty Bud's opine

I doubt many of you read the comments left by other visitors, so I thought I'd put up front three I received to yesterday's post "Well, we got our butts kicked".  First from my favorite Lefty, Rob of Emphasis Added (great blog name!) who showed his genius by agreeing with me:

"voters perceive Democrats as spending big money on them, the voters, whereas Republicans are seen as spending on themselves and on Big Business."

That is a really good observation. Also, on moral turpitude and sexual scandal, Dems can survive better than R's because Dems don't make sexual morality part of their politics. They may be perverts, but at least they're not hypocrites and perverts.

You might also take comfort in the fact that the Dem majority this year was made possible by socially-moderate, fiscally-responsible candidates like Casey, Webb, Tester, Schuler, etc. The old liberals may be in charge of the committees in the House, but they owe their seats to a new crop whose ideology is actually a little closer to old-line conservatism than many in the current day GOP. If they want to keep the big offices and the new drapes, they'll do well to remember that. Otherwise this will be a real short ride.

Here's wishing you a pleasant two years of bitter and resentful opposition. It's not so bad after a while, and it's fun to complain about stuff without having to take any responsibility.

Posted by: Rob Salkowitz | November 08, 2006 at 03:37 PM   (Emphasis added - hah!)

This is going to be a really interesting inside-baseball struggle for the Democrats.  Their leadership would really love to go off the deep left end, and will lean hard on their new conservative members to hew the line.  Maybe the conservative Democrat freshmen were sincere about their conservative policies, maybe not.  We'll see.  If what we saw Tuesday was a return of the Conservative Democrat then that's great for Conservatism, for the Country, and even for the Republicans.  It would be even more interesting if we had a really conservative President, but we have a Compassionate Conservative so the waters are bound to be muddied.  Stay tuned...

Then Dear Sister Brandy commented:

OK, I came here to gloat, but I feel for you. I really do. I remember what it is like to wake up after this big a loss. (Only there isn't a hint of election fraud this time to add salt to the wound.)

I love how all the exit polls, actually every poll for the last 6 months say that the Republicans are out of touch with the war, yet you choose fiscal responsibility and corruption as your two big planks.

OK, corruption was also high in the exit polls, but the war was number 1.

This isn't about Republicans working together, it's about Republicans working well with others.

Love you!!! Brandy

Posted by: Brandy | November 08, 2006 at 01:40 PM

I respond thus:

1. Thanks for the sympathy.  I appreciate the thought, but I don't really feel that bad because of the conservative Democrat factor at play here. 
2. The election fraud was mostly a ginned up issue -- a matter of sour grapes from the left, although its hard to blame folks for being bitter about losing by less than the margin of error.  There has always been a certain level of election fraud and cheating (ask MC about the old KC Pendergrast machine) but until the votes got so close it didn't much matter.
3. Fiscal responsibility and morality are the core of the Republican Party; without them who needs Republicans?  The War is a policy issue, and there are a heck of a lot of people angry about waging it too pussyfootedly; plenty enough to have lost.
4. For Republicans to come back to majorities they will have to work together.  Working well with others is good, too, as long as you don't betray your principles doing so.
5. Love you, too!

And finally, Walt wrote (under his natural nom de plum for a change):

Gosh, wouldn't it be fun if you could polish off that blog entry of about two years ago today when you smugly wrote about the permanent demise of the democratic party and the unstoppable superiority of the GOP? Hmmm? :-)

Posted by: Walt | November 08, 2006 at 09:57 AM

The one thing I NEVER expected the Democrats to do was to run as conservatives.  Enough of them did this year to make the difference.  As I said to Rob, if conservative Democrats are back, then that's a great thing for Conservatism.  If it's just a trick, then it will be a short ride, to quote Rob.  Either way I win.  To be honest, I also didn't expect so many Republicans to lose sight of conservative principles so fast.  I thought there were enough of them with enough energy to reform the culture of Washington.  I was wrong about that.  So sue me.

Two days after the election, I feel fine.  The Republic will muddle through. Conservative principles have been strengthened in a way I never anticipated.  The next Supreme Court Justice will probably suck from my point of view, but for the rest, no problemo.

Besides, there's always Sports Talk Radio!

Comments

[Rob Salkowitz]

Thanks for the ups, P. Just to be clear, "conservative" does not equal "right wing." And even the more socially conservative Dems are not interested in making culture-war issues the centerpiece of their agenda. Harry Reid, for example, is opposed to abortion (also, he's a Mormon), but I'd put money on the proposition that there is no chance whatsoever that any abortion-related legislation will come before the Senate or the House while Dems are in charge, and reactionary activist judges will die quietly in committee.

I am very hopeful that divided government will help restore some fiscal sanity. Apparently one of the top-line items for Dems in the House is to lower a particularly odious and regressive tax, the AMT, and to extend tax credits for high-tech R&D. Dems lowering taxes - on rich people and businesses no less. What's the world coming to?

BTW, how are you feeling about the filibuster these days?

[pedro]

Howdy, Rob.
First, about your last point -- filibusters. I like the idea of the real Jimmy Stewart talk-for-three-days-straight filibuster, but I always hated the filibuster-lite we've experienced lately, even when/if Republicans do it, which I don't think they will. Aside from immigration, on which the President might as well be San Fran Nan, I think we might just see a veto or two. The Republicans don't need to filibuster, and wouldn't survive the screaming hypocrisy of using that tool.
I'm not sure what "right wing" means to you, and I don't think there are very many of them, whatever they are, in Washington these days. I personally only know one person who would call himself that (my wingnut ophthalmologist).
Abortion, especially after South Dakota, has pretty much been taken out of the legislative arena. I agree there is no way any abortion legislation will come up while the Democrats are in charge -- why would it? As to "reactionary activist judges", I don't want them either. I don't want legislation from the bench from "my" guys any more than I want it from "your" guys. Judicial activism stinks. However, I don't consider putting the constitution above stare decisis reactionary at all. With the right nominees we might see some constructive compromise on this, but we'll have to wait and see. (Please don't ask me to explain the Harriet Myers nomination; I can't. That was the moment when a lot of conservatives jumped ship.)
As to "divided government restoring some fiscal sanity", I couldn't agree more. Had we been at peace, I would have been tempted to vote D for that very reason. Maybe what we saw last week was term limits in action as it was meant to be. Certainly the elected Republicans had fallen into many of the same traps as the pre-'94 Democrats, and were given the same treatment by the voters. I dearly hope the Republicans can get their act cleaned up in the next two years. Although their behavior this week hasn't been very promising, we'll have to see what new leadership has to offer.
This is going to be interesting...