Dems: Rearranging The Deck Chairs

[DKW 86 7,440]

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editori...241137296279312

This as close to my own views of the 2006 elections as I can find. The Dems are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. They need to address the REAL issues. "I HATE Bush" is not a platform.

Rearranging The Deck Chairs

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 8/22/2006

Politics: In a quest to recapture the White House, Democrats will shake up their primary calendar. But after Gore and Kerry, what they really need is a new message.

Meeting in Chicago on Saturday, party leaders rearranged their primary calendar in the hope that adding diversity and geographical balance might help them rebound from their presidential failures of 2000 and 2004.

The plan would keep Iowa's caucuses in their traditional leadoff position. But it will shoehorn Nevada, with its large Hispanic population and heavy union presence, in front of the New Hampshire primary, followed by South Carolina with its larger population.

South Carolina Democratic Chairman Joe Erwin praised the move, contending "there's great regional diversity in four events strung out over a period of a couple of weeks."1) But regional or ethnic diversity is not the Democrats' problem. Ideological diversity is, a case in point being the party's purge of Joe Lieberman.

In 2000, Lieberman was the Democrats' choice to balance the ticket, both geographically and ideologically. A mere six years ago he was the man the Democrats wanted to be the proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency.

That was then. This is now. And now Lieberman is politician non grata for actually believing that politics should stop at the water's edge, that our enemies are the Osama bin Ladens and Hassan Nasrallahs of the world, not Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove.

2004 nominee John Kerry ripped Lieberman over the weekend,branding him on ABC's "This Week" as "out of step with the people of Connecticut." Which presumably is why polls have him leading the man who won the Connecticut primary, Ned Lamont.

Kerry added: "To adopt the rhetoric of Dick Cheney, who has been wrong about almost everything he has said about Iraq, shows you just exactly why he got into trouble."

But Lieberman realizes that winning the war in Iraq means more than winning the next election.

2) Also on "This Week" recently, former co-host (and daughter of a former Democratic congressman) Cokie Roberts stunned host George Stephanopoulos when she said before the Connecticut primary that it would be a "disaster for the Democratic Party" if Lamont defeated Lieberman.

"Pushing the party to the left," Roberts said, " is pushing the party to the position from which it traditionally loses."

The American people may not be happy with events in Iraq. But they do know, especially after events in Lebanon and the foiled British bomb plot, that we're in a war in which failure is not an option and for which repeating "Bush lied" is not a strategy.

3) Americans will not put in power a party that accepts the proposition that global warming is a greater threat than terrorism, that thinks Wal-Mart is a plague on the poor and that wants to repeal the job-creating, economy-boosting and deficit-cutting Bush tax cuts.

4) They will not put in power a party that thinks death is a taxable event and that success should be punished. They will not pass the reins to a party that denies us access to energy reserves offshore and in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and which thinks energy independence means building windmills and hugging caribou.

5) This is a party that thinks Dunkirk was a British redeployment and that doesn't understand why Bush doesn't just sit down and make nice with nuclear madmen like Korea's Kim Jong-il and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

The Democrats think this year will be their 1994. As voters read the morning papers on their way to vote in November, and decide who should navigate these unsettled waters, the Democrats may well wake up the next day to find the Republicans still in power and Lieberman getting a congratulatory phone call from President Bush.

[otterinbham 0]

I agree with this article. However, I think we really need a president who can actually articulate a strategy.

[DKW 86 7,440]

I agree with this article. However, I think we really need a president who can actually articulate a strategy.

Mega-Dittoes...