Saturday, August 11, 2007

Further signs of delusions

At the above link, the creator of the Daily Kos, and one of his co-writers are proclaiming that they have won the "center" of the American electorate. One of the things that I have learned as I got older is to never believe your own propaganda. Moulitas seems to think that the reason that the Democrats won the Senate and House is because they pushed the Democratic Party leftward, and were rewarded for their desire to be more socialist than the DLC was.
Let me posit another theory as to why the Democrats won both chambers: The general electorate was fed up with Republican corruption and pork barreling. Take for example Conrad Burns. Tester beat him by less than the margin of votes who went to the Libertarian candidate. Suppose that Conrad had been able to attract those votes, would the Senate still be in ostensibly Democratic control? Maybe not.
The advantage that the Democrats had was the manipulation of the media. Remember Abramof? How much do you hear about his relationship with Harry Ried and other Democrats? The fact is, the Democrats are not more moral or honest than the Republicans. They just receive less coverage for their crookedness in the general media. But suppose more of this sort of corruption is exposed. Would the American public react with the attitude that the Democrats may be crooks, but they are on our side, or throw those bums out too?
As a basically Libertarian Republican, I want decent, honest and effective candidates who are able to exercise independent judgment. I don't see that in the Democratic party at the moment. Instead, I see Tester and to a certain extent Baucus becoming captive to the Left Wing noise machine. This is probably reasonable, since look what Kos was able to do to Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary. On the other hand, look what Ned Lamont did in the general as well.
In the past, Baucus would always become Republican just before his election. With the Netroots so active, I am not sure that he will be able to do so now. Keenan may be an unknown quantity at the moment, but if Baucus is pushed too far left, Keenan may be able to upset the senior senator from our fair state.

1 comment:

Andy B. Hammond said...

I hope the Democrats continue to go more left and pander to the liberal netroots and especially the Daily Kos. It is certain to attract the moderate middle vote!

I'm thrilled that they all think this. Let's try to encourage it more.