Bushies Not Coping Well With GOP Defeat

From complaining about the tone of Obama's inaugural address to complaining about the stimulus bill not including their ideas, Bushies seem to be having trouble with one overriding fact: The Republicans lost and Democrats won. Get ready for Republicans' attempts to discredit Obama's win and insist that their policies haven't been repudiated by the American people. 

Here's how one Republican put it during the early part of this decade, before Bubble-Boy had screwed up the Iraq War, the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the American economy: "Elections have consequences." Well, he was right and one of those consequences is that the winners get to set the agenda for their term. 

Having lost control of two of the three branches of government, the Republicans are in for a rough ride. Probably the best thing they can hope for is that the economy doesn't improve and Democrats suffer electoral defeats in the 2010 and 2012 elections. If the economy does improve, however, they are in for a long period in the wilderness. 

Of course, their own incompetence brought this on their fate. Americans want government to be competent and Republicans have always insisted that they are much more competent than Democrats. Well, that myth, like so many others, was destroyed by Bush and his merry wrecking crew. 

Maybe if they had put some distance between themselves and BB during BB's tenure in office, they wouldn't have been routed in two consecutive national elections. But they didn't and they were. As mentioned above, in America, elections do have consequences.  

Sectionalism in Auto Bailout Debate

Last night, while the House of Representatives was taking a vote on a procedural matter on the automaker bailout legislation, CSPAN played a clip of Republican Senators denouncing the possible bailout. The Senators who spoke were Shelby from Alabama, DeMint from South Carolina, and Coburn from Oklahoma. All three states were part of the Old Confederacy.

Sectionalism is nothing new in American politics. Since the beginning of the United States, there have been sectional disputes centered around the economy. During the Jefferson Administration New England politicians debated the idea of secession. During the Jackson Administration South Carolina talked about secession. Obviously, during the Lincoln Administration secession became a reality.

All of these disputes centered around economic issues, including slavery. While slavery was a moral issue for abolitionists, it was a big economic issue in the South. A lot of Southern plantation owners had wealth tied up in owning slaves.

So sectionalism in American politics is nothing new, and sectionalism based on economic issues is certainly not new. Given that fact, then how do you rise about sectionalism? You rise about sectionalism by pointing out how interconnected the American economy is and how that what happens to one section hurts all sections.

What those of us in Northern states need to point out is that millions of Americans losing their jobs hurts all of us. Interestingly, there is an article on the Forbes website that points out that Southern auto workers realize this fact. Here is a quote from the article:

"If they go under I don't know what's in store for us," said the 41-year-old employee at Nissan Motor Co. (nasdaq: NSANY - news - people )'s Smyrna assembly plant. "Everybody at Nissan is scared."

The worker being quoted works at a Nissan plant in Tennessee. She realizes that the failure of GM and Chrysler would cripple auto production because of the effect on suppliers.

There is also the fact that bankruptcy of Chrysler and GM would actually cost more than the cost of the bailout being debated. If there is a bankruptcy, then literally thousands of jobs will be lost, leading to an increase for things like unemployment, medicaid, and a loss of tax revenue for local and state governments.

Southern politicians need to understand that poking the Yankees in the eye may lead to vision problems for residents of their states as well.

Will Iraq War Hurt Democrats More Than Republicans?

Most Democratic activists believe that the Iraq War assures that the next President of the United States will be a Democrat. While it would seem that Democrats have an advantage because of the Iraq War, success is not guaranteed. The Iraq War could actually cause more trouble for Democrats than for Republicans.

On the Republican side there doesn't seem to be any intraparty turmoil over Bush's war. The Republican base seems to support Bush on the war. The Republican candidates are pretty much in support of Bush for starting the war, although some break with him on how the war has been managed. On the Democratic side, however, it is a different story.

In the June 21, 2007 edition of the Washington Post we have this article by Senator Carl Levin, a sponsor of the recent war funding bill that was vetoed. On the face of it, this article seems to be a reasoned defense of why Democratic Senators don't want to vote for cutting off funding for the war. Sen. Levin's approach, however, leads to this response on Daily Kos. As you can see, by reading the entry on Daily Kos the writer rejects any argument that Democratic Senators who voted to fund the war without the timelines following Bush's veto did the correct thing. If you read the comments to the posting, it is almost impossible to find anyone who agrees with Senator Levin's article.

The problem is, of course, what to do about the fact that Bush has a veto power over Democratic passed legislation. Right now there does not exist enough Republican votes to pass a funding bill with timelines over his veto. The alternatives then seem either to be pass the funding bill without timelines or don't pass a funding bill at all. Of course, that means that Democratic Senators will be subject to the repeated claim by Republicans that they are "abandoning" American troops. Given the complicity of the media in Bush's war, this claim is very likely to be picked up by the media without any thought or consideration of whether it is correct.

Furthermore, such a funding cut-off of American troops while they are fighting has not, to our knowledge, been done before. Congress cut off funding for aid to South Vietnam in 1974, but that was after American troops had withdrawn from Vietnam. It also came after 12 years of American involvement in Vietnam. (Click here to read a short history of how Congress ended American involvement in South Vietnam.) Cutting off funding to South Vietnam is a far cry from cutting off funding for American military operations while American troops are engaged in combat.

Yet, such distinctions don't seem to matter to many Democratic activists. It is easy to see a situation where the activist base of the Democratic Party, angered at what many activists regard as complicity in Bush's War and by the nomination of a presidential candidate like Hillary Clinton who voted to authorize the war, walk away from the Democratic Party in 2008. This could easily lead to a situation where the Republican candidate has more support from his party than the Democratic nominee does from his or her party. It was just such a situation that helped elect Nixon in 1968 and Reagan in 1980. Who says that political history can't repeat itself?

Washington Post Study Shows Historical Unity by Dem U.S. House Members

If you click on the link in this entry's title, you can read a study that was done by a Washington Post reporter showing that Democrats in the House of Representatives are voting together about 94% of the time. The previous record was held by the Republicans during the first two years of Bubble-Boy's first term. Then the GOP members voted together about 90% of the time. What makes the Democrats' unity even more remarkable is that they don't have a president who is setting the agenda. It would seem much easier for Representatives to stick together when they are following one person's agenda.

Of course, you still read stories about how much in disarray Democrats are over the war. Such stories became common place when the Democrats were in the minority over the 12 years between 1994-2006. When you don't control the majority, it is much harder for party members to stay united.

If Republicans lose the White House in 2008 and stay in the minority in 2008, you will start to see Republicans splintering and not staying united. This will be especially true of Republicans from "blue" leaning areas. Depending on the result of the 2008 presidential election, such Republicans might come from Ohio. With redistricting on the horizon, a Democratic governor, and a Democratic president, Republican House members might want to show that they can work with Democrats.