Friday, July 29, 2005
JUDOING THE JUGGERNAUT:
Every survey indicates that She Who Must Not Be Named already has the Democratic nomination for President all but locked up. Why, then, did she offend her loyalists by bothering to speak at the DLC convention? That stands, in practice if not yet in name, for Democrats Loving Corporations -- a group after my own heart, if someone must be a Democrat at all. Sadly for them, the last Democratic President who really did more than give lip service to their views was Grover Cleveland. Her husband also notably used them for ideological cover in his own campaign, but since then their relentless denunciation of the party has made them pariahs of the lefty web, and she has been catching flak for pandering to these "shills for subsidies and outsourcing".
Again, why does she think positioning herself as a "moderate" is so important, since she knows that she would have universal support from the left, and even (horrors!) some Republican women, as the ultimate affirmative action example? It's because she knows she may not be able to count on those votes. She may even face a woman opponent in 2008. Ponder this image:
This picture is taken from a site spotted by Travis of Rain Storm, who could not tell if this was "high-concept satire or the real deal," namely Americans for Dr. Rice ("Dedicated to Drafting Dr. Rice for President"). I assure you it is a very real deal. Every poll of Republicans that includes her name shows her as their first choice for the nomination. Fearful GOP stalwarts, trembling before the junior Senator from New York, have suggested that whichever middle-aged white male they nominate should pick someone like Rice as their Veep candidate to defuse voting booth sisterhood. That timid half-measure won't work. Proof? Mondale tried it for the Democrats in 1984, and his symbolic gesture of that year is today almost as little remembered as William Miller. (That other New York Congressman ran with Goldwater twenty years before, and later would up making an ad for a credit card company asking "Do you know me?")
Everyone on the right is apoplectic at the prospect of Mrs. The Clenis returning in vengeful glory to the White House. What we have to do to keep her out is not head-on opposition, which her blind loyalists will denounce as sexist, but judo. Give in to the Democratic hatred of Our Noble Lame Duck, and put others in her own party in a position to stop her.
Consider this: the continuing bad economic news, especially the rise in gas prices which will be even worse next year, will overwhelm the good news about returning troops when we start bringing them back from Iraq in 2006. We'll wind up in the same situation the Prez's father faced in 1992. Once war is off the front burner, voters begin remembering their pocketbooks, and voting accordingly. Next year, the Democrats will probably win the U.S. House. Their first priority then will be starting committee investigations to see who they can impeach first.
Let's keep that from happening, by a radical flip. After the 2006 election, in early January, the President should announce that the voters have made it obvious they hold his administration responsible for the nation's woes. Let him say that, as a good Republican, he does not accept the liberal view of collective guilt. Instead, he takes all the blame himself, since the people he appointed were only trying to carry out his policies. They should not be punished for any errors he may have made. Therefore, he is issuing a full pardon, in advance of any indictments, for everyone else in his administration. Then, as further penance, he is resigning his office and going back to the ranch. Good luck, and God bless America.
A waiting judge should swear in Cheney on live TV. Then the new Prez, now free from any fear of criminal charges, should stand at the podium and announce that he has been greatly moved by the self-sacrificing example of 43. In honor of his noble gesture, Cheney now issues a full advance pardon to Bush. Furthermore he feels he must try to live up to that great role model, so he too is immediately resigning.
This will mean the next President will be the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Full of her own ambition, she can be counted on to seek another term. That female incumbent means farewell, for at least the next election, to the dreams of our bête noire from New York. Meanwhile, the Chinese, still angry at Pelosi for her long advocacy of "human rights" restrictions on trade with them, will get back at her by ending their funding of our deficit. The economy will come crashing further down, just in time for the country's first woman President to lose in 2008 to the second one, Condi herself. If She Who Must Not Be Named even bothers to challenge President Rice four years after that, she will find the electorate has been thoroughly inoculated against her former trump card of being the first woman candidate. Folks will yawn, say, oh, another one, and give her no boost at all on election day.
In politics, timing is everything. This, admittedly uncomfortable, surprise strategy, will ensure that the greatest threat to Republican dominance misses her last period of possibility.
Every survey indicates that She Who Must Not Be Named already has the Democratic nomination for President all but locked up. Why, then, did she offend her loyalists by bothering to speak at the DLC convention? That stands, in practice if not yet in name, for Democrats Loving Corporations -- a group after my own heart, if someone must be a Democrat at all. Sadly for them, the last Democratic President who really did more than give lip service to their views was Grover Cleveland. Her husband also notably used them for ideological cover in his own campaign, but since then their relentless denunciation of the party has made them pariahs of the lefty web, and she has been catching flak for pandering to these "shills for subsidies and outsourcing".
Again, why does she think positioning herself as a "moderate" is so important, since she knows that she would have universal support from the left, and even (horrors!) some Republican women, as the ultimate affirmative action example? It's because she knows she may not be able to count on those votes. She may even face a woman opponent in 2008. Ponder this image:
This picture is taken from a site spotted by Travis of Rain Storm, who could not tell if this was "high-concept satire or the real deal," namely Americans for Dr. Rice ("Dedicated to Drafting Dr. Rice for President"). I assure you it is a very real deal. Every poll of Republicans that includes her name shows her as their first choice for the nomination. Fearful GOP stalwarts, trembling before the junior Senator from New York, have suggested that whichever middle-aged white male they nominate should pick someone like Rice as their Veep candidate to defuse voting booth sisterhood. That timid half-measure won't work. Proof? Mondale tried it for the Democrats in 1984, and his symbolic gesture of that year is today almost as little remembered as William Miller. (That other New York Congressman ran with Goldwater twenty years before, and later would up making an ad for a credit card company asking "Do you know me?")
Everyone on the right is apoplectic at the prospect of Mrs. The Clenis returning in vengeful glory to the White House. What we have to do to keep her out is not head-on opposition, which her blind loyalists will denounce as sexist, but judo. Give in to the Democratic hatred of Our Noble Lame Duck, and put others in her own party in a position to stop her.
Consider this: the continuing bad economic news, especially the rise in gas prices which will be even worse next year, will overwhelm the good news about returning troops when we start bringing them back from Iraq in 2006. We'll wind up in the same situation the Prez's father faced in 1992. Once war is off the front burner, voters begin remembering their pocketbooks, and voting accordingly. Next year, the Democrats will probably win the U.S. House. Their first priority then will be starting committee investigations to see who they can impeach first.
Let's keep that from happening, by a radical flip. After the 2006 election, in early January, the President should announce that the voters have made it obvious they hold his administration responsible for the nation's woes. Let him say that, as a good Republican, he does not accept the liberal view of collective guilt. Instead, he takes all the blame himself, since the people he appointed were only trying to carry out his policies. They should not be punished for any errors he may have made. Therefore, he is issuing a full pardon, in advance of any indictments, for everyone else in his administration. Then, as further penance, he is resigning his office and going back to the ranch. Good luck, and God bless America.
A waiting judge should swear in Cheney on live TV. Then the new Prez, now free from any fear of criminal charges, should stand at the podium and announce that he has been greatly moved by the self-sacrificing example of 43. In honor of his noble gesture, Cheney now issues a full advance pardon to Bush. Furthermore he feels he must try to live up to that great role model, so he too is immediately resigning.
This will mean the next President will be the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Full of her own ambition, she can be counted on to seek another term. That female incumbent means farewell, for at least the next election, to the dreams of our bête noire from New York. Meanwhile, the Chinese, still angry at Pelosi for her long advocacy of "human rights" restrictions on trade with them, will get back at her by ending their funding of our deficit. The economy will come crashing further down, just in time for the country's first woman President to lose in 2008 to the second one, Condi herself. If She Who Must Not Be Named even bothers to challenge President Rice four years after that, she will find the electorate has been thoroughly inoculated against her former trump card of being the first woman candidate. Folks will yawn, say, oh, another one, and give her no boost at all on election day.
In politics, timing is everything. This, admittedly uncomfortable, surprise strategy, will ensure that the greatest threat to Republican dominance misses her last period of possibility.
