Decision ‘08

A Line So Good I Intend To Steal It

I don’t know if Ryan Sager was the first to use this, or if it’s enjoyed prior currency, but I have to say that this is good, really good:

The question mark then is whether the Democrats will continue in their recently assumed role as the Palestinians of American politics, never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Here, at least, Republicans can be forgiven their smug sense of security. Few people can make a question mark look like a period quite like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California’s answer to a question nobody asked.

Now that’s a great paragraph, but the whole article is quite interesting. Sager thinks Republicans are entirely too sanguine regarding 2006:

…[I]f [Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee] or his staff had done any digging into the poll numbers from 1994, he probably wouldn’t have cited the Pew poll [as evidence that Republicans are in good shape heading into 2006] — at least not if he wanted to disprove the 1994/2006 connection. Roll Call columnist Stuart Rothenberg did some digging and found that a similarly worded poll from 1994, conducted by Yankelovich Partners, found the exact same breakdown: 57 percent to reelect, 25 percent to throw the bums out.

So, there’s no particular reason to believe that voters are any less ready for a change of party in Congress than they were twelve years ago. In fact, another poll (by the Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research) shows voters preferring Democrats to Republicans by 6 points nationally, even when the question is phrased using the names of their incumbent congressmen.

Highly recommended; though I don’t agree with all of Sager’s conclusions, I do share his sense of urgency…

8 Responses to “A Line So Good I Intend To Steal It”

1 Fred Says:
October 25th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
I believe that line was originally Henry Kissenger’s from the early 1970’s. So feel free to steal it. It’s something that never goes out of fashion.
2 Mark Says:
October 25th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
Ah, I had a feeling it was too good to have just popped up like that…
3 William Thrash Says:
October 25th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
A Pew poll not cited there is http://www.pewtrusts.org/pdf/PRC_gov_1005.pdf
where not only republicans are viewed unfavorably, but the democrats don’t show correspondingly higher as the republicans did in ‘94.

There is general discontent with both parties and that means a likely low voter turnout rather than a democratic landslide of kumbaya signing anti-patriots.

As a conservative, I have feelings of “throw the bums out,” although for me that doesn’t mean voting in a dem. My effort will be in voting for a challenger conservative.

If I can rant for a moment: the republicans in congress just cannot seem to find any backbone to use their majority to enact any meaningful change - instead, they’ve all sucked up to the federal money-tit and are soaking us just like the damnocrats did before ‘94. Enough!
4 Mark Says:
October 25th, 2005 at 4:50 pm
William, feel free to rant away - thanks for the comments…
5 peter Says:
October 25th, 2005 at 5:54 pm
Actually he stole the line from a column in the Times last week (I think it was David Brooks) who paraphrased the line about Palestinians to apply to the Democrats –
6 Mark Says:
October 25th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
Well, peter, then it’s twice stolen, so it won’t matter if I make it a third…
7 louielouie Says:
October 25th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
“all sucked up to the federal money-tit”

i use the same idea as a refrain although using the term “gov’t teat” is my expression. i digress.

my version of W/T’s rant is that not all dems are liberal, not all libs are dems. nor are all repubs conservative or all conservatives repubs.
myself, being a registered democrat, would today be described as a conservative with libertarian tendencies, or if reading arnold kling, using late 18th century terminology “a classic liberal conservative”. my blithering yields that the main purpose of serving in elected capacity in the u.s. today consists of being re-elected. that is the private sector equivalent of completing a successful project of some type. once you achieve the federal level you severe the umbilical that is you allegiance to the electorate and cling to those who really are your source of re-election. your federal colleagues. they and they alone are responsible for how you are percieved in the eyes of the electorate. and while the country goes to “chomsky” in a handbasket, your federal colleagues ………got your back.
8 William Thrash Says:
October 25th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
Louielouie, you’re right in your observation about my usage. However, I won’t apologize - it’s convenient to use a broad brush since my fingers are getting older and who wants to read nine paragraphs of political qualifications?

I fall into the exact same political category you do. Democrat turned… into what I am. I have no particular affinity for the republican party - I think they were dreadfully wrong during the civil war and it cost America a far heavier penalty than is being admitted. No, I’m not defending slavery, but anyone who knows the non-historically-revised reason of why the civil war was fought ought to see that up-front.

Many ideas have been fronted for combatting this pervasive “permanent election” job we give to our reps, but aside from forced term limits, there isn’t much else that is efficient. A lottery to serve? Too many a**monkeys.

It’s not an easy issue since the majority of the electorate keeps voting party-line without regard to the qualifications of who they’re voting for. We’re stuck, in other words.