<p>Thedad, do you think there is any chance the demos won’t win in the House or the Senate?</p>
<p>Today’s Boston Globe has a reasonably good article (and remarkable in that the reporter managed to get out of Baghdad):</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/12/07/behind_iraq_politicians_an_ayatollah_holds_sway/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/12/07/behind_iraq_politicians_an_ayatollah_holds_sway/</a></p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>So the difference is that the Shah was more efficient in his despotism?</p>
<p>I suspect that the Ayatollahs would love to put a halt to some of the discussion in Iran, as well. They just don’t have as tight a hold on the reins. Also, there’s that darned internet thing. A modern repressive despot has a hard lot in life. How does he manage to keep his people from seeing what could be for their country, every day?</p>
<p>Well, they’ve had continual democratic elections; elected two Presidents opposed by the Ayatollahs, with different philosophies regarding economic systems; allowed a level of democratic debate unthinkable in any other Middle Eastern country, including debates about the rights of women. In a country with a 97% Muslim population, that is absolutely extraordinary. And all this after overthrowing the fifth most powerful military in the history of the world, backed by the most powerful military in the history of the world, without firing a shot, and then spending the next 10 years resisting both overt and covert efforts by that military power to destabilize it, including support, with chemical weapons, for its next-door neighbor.</p>
<p>Would that be the way I would like to live? Not on your life. But it’s not a country that is running scared, and degree of democratic debate within the country reflects that.</p>
<p>Well, I read the Boston Globe article and it looks like we are going to have two Irans instead of one. I don’t think that was the Bush’s administration’s intent a couple of years ago.</p>
<p>“I suspect that the Ayatollahs would love to put a halt to some of the discussion in Iran.”</p>
<p>I suspect that GW would love to put a halt to some of the discussion in the U.S. He just doesn’t have as tight a hold on the reins. Also, there’s that darned Internet thing.</p>
<p>Like cc.</p>
<p>I think the degree of democratic debate in Iran reflects the near impossibility of stopping it short of the most ghoulish forms of despotism. In the old days, a despot could control what his subjects knew of the outside world to a much higher degree. Not anymore. One click of the mouse and you can get the latest Brittany Spears news or order a Yao Ming jersey.</p>
<p>Today’s despots have to open the pressure relief valves much more than the legendary despots of old, allowing the people just enough freedom to keep them from massive armed insurrection. In politician terms, they have to deliver the goods.</p>
<p>Maybe, just maybe, they have democracy because they like it? I mean isn’t that what stops our most ghoulish forms of despotism? (They did write a Constitution, you know, and defended it against Saddam Hussein backed by our ghouls…)</p>
<p>Dstark, yes. I actually think that each is an uphill proposition <em>right now</em>. Eleven months is an eternity…or several eternities…in politics.</p>
<p>That said, <em>if</em> things keep going as if they are right now, and assuming that the Iraqi elections are just another fake corner turned and the situations on the ground is substantially unchanged, which I think it will be, then I think there’s a good chance for a wind to be blowing at the backs of Democratic candidates. The torpedo that is the Fitzgerald investigation hasn’t really hit yet and despite all the RNC talking points will ge signficiant. The torpedo that comprises the Abramhoff scandal is just beginning to enter the public consciousness and on top of the aggregate headlines about DeLay, Cunningham, and those that will emerge over Ohio’s “Coingate” (gotta drop the “gate” stuff…it’s more than quarter-century old), I think that borrowing a page or two out of the GOP’s playbook–say something simplistic over and over again–and campaigning on “Cronyism, Corruption, and Incompetence” will be effective. </p>
<p>The down the line splits on the current polls is fascinating. Dem support for Bush, Iraq, etc. is consistently under 10 percent now, and Independents are tracking at under 25 percent after spending most of Bush’s first term at 50-60 percent. I do engage a mental picture of that Western painting of “Custer’s Last Stand” and hope for it.</p>
<p>Otoh, a lot of House seats are effectively gerrymandered. California’s legislature executed a gutless mutual incumbent protection act when the redistricted such that there are one, maybe two, competitive House seats out of 53…under “ordinary” circumstances. GOP governors/legislatures have also tilted normal redistricitng in the GOP favor in a number of states and then there’s that unpreceddented mid-census redistricting that DeLay executed in Texas.</p>
<p>To retake the House, the Dems need a net gain of 15. I think this is doable but looking at, say, the most 50 competitive races…if you don’t look at them with Blue eyes…says this is stretch <em>right now.</em> If I had to place my bets at moment, I’d say 8-10. The DeLay redistricting of Texas is what could preserve the GOP margin in the House. However, if disaffection with the GOP intesifies…doesn’t even grow, just intensifies, then, yeah, I could see the Dems picking up as many as 30 seats. One currently indeterminate factor is how many GOP seats will open up due to retirements.</p>
<p>Prospects for the Senate look moderately better. God bless and preserve Liddy Dole…the GOP has had a bad streak with candidate recruiting in a large number of states and the RSCC trails the DSCC in fundraising…the only org to org deficit they face. A Dem sweep of all the close races would put them with an eight seat gain; imo, right now I’d read it at +3. They need +6 to take control. I think a number of prospective GOP candidates are looking at the winds and deciding that now is not the time to risk their political careers. I’m particularly a fan of Paul Hacektt in Ohio…a major in the Marine reserves who served in Iraq and correctly called Bush a liar, a chickenhawk, and a sonofab…
Hackett narrowly lost a special election in the OH-2, a fairly conservative Cincinnati suburban/exurban district, a couple of months ago and I think he’ll do well statewide; Sherrod Brown, his Dem primary opponent, may be too liberal for the state as a whole though the entire Ohio GOP is taking hit after hit and DeWine’s numbers are looking pretty iffy for an incumbent. I think the open seat in Minnesota will be key and I’d like to see Harold Ford, Jr.'s numbers in Tennessee about six months from now.</p>
<p>One wild card in all of this is whether the anti-immigration fanatics, energized by Jim Gilchrist’s strong showing in the CA-48 special election yesterday, challenge Republican office holders from the Right. An answered prayer would be someone like Tom Tancredo to run in the GOP primaries or as in independent for president, a reverse-Nader, in 2008…but I’m getting a little ahead here…one election cycle at a time.</p>
<p>Where I think the biggest Democratic gains will be is in the statehouses. Mitt Romney told the GOP governors the other day that he expects some GOP losses…and I think he low-balled. My own read says the Dems pick up +6, maybe as many as +8. Given the implications for the 2008 presidential election and, if re-elected in 2010, for the post-2010 census redistricting, I’ll take it.</p>
<p>Thedad, before I read your post, I thought it was a slam dunk that the Demos would win at least one house. Boy, you made me depressed today. :(</p>
<p>“I suspect that GW would love to put a halt to some of the discussion in the U.S. He just doesn’t have as tight a hold on the reins. Also, there’s that darned Internet thing” Mini</p>
<p>This gave me a laugh. Good to see humor in a political thread.</p>
<p>Hopefully the Dems will pick up the Senate. If they can get control of one House, then we won’t have the Repubs “investigating” themselves on 9/11, the War, New Orleans etc. and they will be in for a long couple of years.</p>
<p>I also am a big Hackett fan.</p>
<p>Dstark, after three decades of political involvement, I’ve found it best to plan on the less optimistic assumptions…may all your surprises be happy. In 2004, I was involved with a group that was phone banking into Nevada, Arizona, and Florida…I kept saying “Ohio” but nobody designated me as strategos. I thought it would come down to the Buckeye state and withn a couple of percent either way.</p>
<p>If you want to feel better, I’d rather have the Dem’s set of cards to play than the GOP’s but then I said the same of Kerry vs. Bush…as Marie Antoinette observed, execution is everything and Kerry didn’t.</p>
<p>TexDad, I’m with you. While I’d like both houses, if I had to chose I’d pick the Senate because of the judicial appointments and the higher profile of the investigations.</p>
<p>Just what we don’t need, a bunch of 20/20 hindsight investigations. Yes it all seems so clear now–but was it really?? I think not as nobody had all the facts, that eventually come out, prior to the event. Virtually every bad event ever could have been prevented if we just knew everything before hand but we never do and never will.</p>
<p>Actually, the 20/20 hindsight investigations have essentially proven what was feared - there was a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda and Saddam had every intention to renew his WMD program once the sanctions were removed. The investigations also cleared up some of the mystique about why countries like France and Russia did not support the war - being on Saddam’s payroll didn’t hurt. They, and the ongoing trial, also showed the extent of Saddam’s sadism.</p>
<p>Bullfeathers.</p>
<p>An “intention to renew his WMD programs” “once the sanctions were removed” is the kind of cotton candy that can be spun into almost anything. BOO!!!</p>
<p>If there were any connection between AQ & SH, it would ballyhooed all over the place–we did, afterall, take complete control of the Iraqi Interior Ministry and other places where sensitive documents would repose–or forged like the Italian-provided “yellowcake” documents. FundingFather and I have connections…I can assure everyone that we are not cooperating. </p>
<p>This administration is excellent at lying by implication, lying by omission, lying by manipulation.</p>
<p>I like Joe Lieberman’s take on all this…“We undermine the president’s credibility at our nation’s peril”. I’m sure that will get him a hearty round of applause at his state’s largest public university.</p>
<p>
From the 1998 Clinton administration indictment of bin Laden. Perhaps there is something in the water at the WH that causes lies … or, those who refuse to accept it are exhibiting willful ignorance.</p>
<p>Browninfall, Lieberman cuts his cloth to suit his moment. E.g.,
</p>
<p>FF, no such cooperation has been unearthed. Moreover, I’d like to see the full citation. The liars in the administration are masters at taking selective facts and arranging them in a manner to convey a lie and you yourself have done the same, e.g., with the whole “yellowcake” report citing U.S., British, and Italian sources, thereby magnifying and seeming to validate what had one forged underlying source. On that basis, I haven’t decided whether you’re a liar yourself or merely a credulous fool. No matter.</p>
<p>Dad, you are offensive</p>