Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Yep, the Great White Hope for the Democratic party, according to Daily Kos among others, is something called "Fighting Democrats". Meaning former soldiers running for Congress on the Democratic ticket.

The most prominent of these men-on-jeepback is of course Paul Hackett. I don't quite know what to make of Hackett yet. He has gotten closer to advocating a rapid pullout from Iraq than any other aspiring Democratic officeholder, but if he 's serious he needs to be a little less coy about it.

Anyhow, whether he's the real goods or just another flash in the pan, he's getting quite a shafting from his party. After a surprisingly good (though losing) effort in a special Congressional election back in August, Hackett set his sights on the Senate. Seems that he made the rounds of all the usual consiglieri and capi -- in particular, the vile (up)Chuck Schumer, godfather of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) -- pronounced discock, I think. Hackett also sought, and says he received, the blessing of Ohio congressman Sherrod Brown, who seems to have been a good enough soldier -- metaphorically speaking -- that the Ohio party organization considered the Senatorial nomination his if he wanted it. Hackett says Brown told him, go ahead.

That was then, this is now. With the spectacular implosion of the Bush administration, and the Democrats' new-found optimism about 2006, they don't want a sacrificial lamb any more, a la McGovern; they want a real Democrat in there, not some loose cannon. So voila, Brown now wants the nomination after all. And Don Carlo Schumer seems to be telling Hackett to bow out gracefully and let Brown have it.

It's not at all clear to me yet whether this tussle is about anything more than Brown's and Hackett's career plans. I'm skeptical about Hackett, who seems a little too good to be true. But I've been wrong before.

Here's one thing would convince me: Hackett loses the nomination to Brown, who will certainly waffle and temporize on the Iraq issue. So Hackett runs a third-party campaign based on bringing the troops home right away. Now wouldn't that be fun.

Leading contender for the face on the Hallmark card is Doctor John Edwards, who observed, "There is a hunger in America, a hunger for a sense of national community, a hunger for something big and important and inspirational that they all can be involved in." Dr. Edwards didn't say so, but I presume he no longer means a war -- that would be sooo 2004.

The first line of defense was a positively Scholastic distinction between money given by Saint Jack himself, and money given by the tribes who were Abramoff's hapless clients. The Kosniks loved this one -- it appealed to their wonkish mastery of technical minutiae. Jack himself -- pay no attention to those tribes behind the curtain -- didn't write any checks to Democrats, so hey, "we" are in the clear. (Incidentally, I love the way Kosniks and other fleas on the donkey carcass refer to the party as "we". Yankees fans do the same thing -- Mr. Steinbrenner's team is always "we". There's a lesson in this.)

Unfortunately, and to the surprise of every three-year-old, it soon became clear that the public was not going to be very interested in this convoluted pettifoggery. Yikes! What do "we" have to fall back on?

Well, gotta hand it to Rahm Emanuel -- even when he's holding a really bad hand, he'll bluff like a sonofabitch:

"He's not an aberration," said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, head of the House Democratic campaign effort, referring to Mr. Abramoff. "He's a super-sized version of what you get when you put the K Street project on steroids."

Looks like a minor Jimmy Carter moment in the making -- one of those cases where the Democrats, quite undeservedly, get a turn at the trough, thanks to some spectacular series of blunders on the part of the Republicans.

I have argued that this is the rule rather than the exception -- that since the Civil War, the Republican Party has been for all practical purposes the ruling party, and the Democrats only get a turn when the Republicans screw up. On one occasion -- the Roosevelt era -- the interval of Democratic hegemony lasted long enough to look like a change in the pattern; but in retrospect, this was clearly the exception that proves the rule.

The current crop of Democrats don't have anybody in the hopper with FDR's gifts, and the public -- alas -- is still not in quite such an insurrectionary mood as they were in 1932. And if they were, the Democrats -- authors of NAFTA and the current health insurance nightmare, co-authors of the Patriot Act, the Iraq war, and CAFTA -- would quite rightly have as much to fear as the Republicans.

I recently discovered something unexpected whilst reloading my data bank for a series of posts I'm preparing on the past peregrinations of our dear little House donkeys. (Part One is already here on the site.)

It just popped up in front of me, thanks to that damn old parlor cat Vann Woodward, and it's been haunting my inner nights ever since, like I'm a murderer in a Poe tale.

Well here I am, unable to take any more, unloading my burden:

In the annals of donkey-controlled Houses, there is one stark, bright counterexample to all our ravings, here at Stop Me, about donkeys having brays but no kick -- eclair-like spinal systems that sway like that mountain in a recent movie, etc. There was, in point of fact, a moment when a donkey-controlled House actually stood up, yes stood up, and against a Republican White House and a Republican Senate -- stood up against 'em and damned if they didn't prevail.

And there's still more pertinence here. These Democrats were opposing an armed occupation by US troops -- and in a real drama, like we can only dream of today, this fearless band of House Democrats refused to pass any legislation to fund the army. None at all, even with strikers rioting in the streets of Pittsburgh -- not a penny would they vote, till that occupation force was removed.

They held their ground for 9 months, steadfastly refusing to budge, even as one Republican president suceeded another. They held their ground till finally the other side caved in and those troops were removed.

So yes, the Daily-kosnik dream of an end to our Iraqupation, just by taking control of the house, has a solid precedent....

If the congressional Democrats of today can take on this outrageous oil-patch Republican reign of darkness in the Middle East with the same gumption that their predecessors, back in 1877, showed against the extremist, bloody-shirt Republicans' armed occupation of -- ahh, you guessed it! -- the defeated Confederacy.

A ways back, I said the house donkeys (even if they, as one, transmogrify into army mules) wouldn't retake the House next November -- "till St. Hillary is burnt at the stake."

Well, let me clarify. Okay, I exaggerated, not purely for effect, but what I should have written (and what I still believe) is this:

I'd keep the prophecy line: there will be no Democratic retaking of the House till Hillary's head is in Barbara Lee's basket. But I should have added, by way of concise explanation, not all Democrats are democrats -- in fact, the inner party is quite something else.

Yes, the party per se might fall back into control -- the lesser of two drunks, after all, only has to fall asleep a few minutes later.

To put a label on what types run that party now and will if it wins next fall, it's... neo-liberal elitists. That probably gets it fair enough, if a trifle too abstract-sounding.

The Democratic Party has had several phases of existence, which you can define with reference to its dominant constitutencies. There was a phase when it was almost exclusively the party of the Bourbon "courthouse gangs" and lynchers down South. That picture got complicated a bit by Northern ethnic urban political machines, and really complicated during what you might call the Bryan years. Technocratic, instrumental-rationalist progressives and liberals later made their mark, and labor unions.

But recently -- with the decline of the unions and the Republican takeover of the white-sheet bloc -- the only really controlling constituency left in the Democratic Party is, well, liberals in the current meaning of that term. That is to say, people with graduate degrees, who work in management or the professions or academia or the media, who make better-than-average salaries and have higher-than-average cultural standards; rational, disciplined people, unmoved by unruly passions; cool-minded trader-offers and honest brokers; people motivated neither by greed nor by a Jacobin or Jacksonian chip on their shoulder. Reasonable, pragmatic, secular, Benthamite -- if you had to carve this class's face on Mount Rushmore, it would be the face of Hillary Clinton.

Now Hillary, in her Triangulationist style, is doing her best to look like anything but a liberal. Nevertheless, that's what she is -- and both her friends and foes know it. Her foes know it and hate her to the point of frothing at the mouth. Her friends know it and stick with her in spite of her support for war, and government snooping, and ethnic cleansing in Israel. The friends may deplore these compromises, but they stick with her because they trust her, and they trust her because they know, at bottom, she's one of them.

The larger public doesn't trust her, though -- and with all their fondness for awful TV shows, and dismal cuisine, and NASCAR races, and downmarket churches -- when it comes to Hillary and her ilk, the public is right.

The thundering wage-earning multitude that makes up the bulk of white America doesn't fear in the least the "national security" arm of the state. And I say -- why in hell should they?

If our traditions of civil liberty mean anything, this free, white, and twenty-one fearlessness is its daily testament.

Fear the payroll tax arm -- fear the undeclared income arm -- them they fear... maybe. And maybe they fear, or rather resent, the red tape spun around 'em by the pointy-headed tight-assed entitlement bureaucrats if they dare try to get what Uncle owes 'em. But not, definitely not, the national-security arm. Not the guys charged with foreign bomb freak detection detention and extirpation. No indeed. "Hey uncle, if you do anything untie another such arm -- no, make that a dozen -- and let 'em fly everywhere like bats on an August evening." White wagery are not about to tremble and rage over a painless overtap or two.

Law-abidin' patriotic native-born white folks don't figure they got much to fear from Bush and his rampantly lawless security state. So this being a settled fact, obviously the loyal-opposition Demos need to... turn the page here. Right? We may have a unitary presidency headed toward Octavian's villa, but we don't have a unitary state, not by any means. For each of the many mugs of uncle there's a different clutch of popular hate frats and fan clubs.

I expect the lead donkeys have taken trillions of sample polls since that New York Times article came out 14 months too late. I bet they know way better then me the relative sizes of votes on this topic. I think they have put aside the loud cries of the belt way's ingrown hate frats and fan clubs, and polled the vast whiteness of middle America, and that they have digested where stands Mr and Mrs Whitey on this tappy-tap crap, this Aunt Polly issue of warrantless snooping on aliens. The top Demos know damn well that to bleat and bray and snort mist serves no purpose. It's at best just a base warmer where the base is molten already.

Now if this is so then doesn't one obvious question pop out? If its not a majority vote getter why don't they ignore it? Why not face elsewhere for now? Go ahead and let Bush/Cheney put the Bill of Rights under martial restraints. Sure it's illegal. So's smoking pot. At least for now, shut up about it. Put the high treason horse back in the stable. Don't keep pushing it. And even worse, don't split your pants over it. Don't waffle it around like Kerry has. Keep your traps shut, at least till you've regained control of the House. Then, well, then -- you'll try impeaching the bastards anyway, right? So why, instead of coming off like a bunch of wet hens here -- why don't you fire off your best shots?

"Out of Iraq now!" first, of course. Even if Mr and Mrs W don't agree, they will respect clarity and a show of absolute values.

But then go on and hit 'em with the bread-basket issues -- "Elect us and we'll raise minimum wage rates. We'll increase overtime pay We'll protect the industrial base by kiboshing the foreign-exchange fiddling that keeps foreign wage rates underselling yours. We'll make uncle take over your health insurance completely. We'll cut payroll taxes from the bottom up...." And so on.

Why is none of this high up on, say, Rahm Emanuel's or senator Bidenbone's or St Hillary's must-do list? Well, you know why, of course: because it ain't on their donors' can-do list. Hence the pragmatics of symbolism -- futile posturing, beautiful losing, and praying for such a huge pile of elephant plops by November, that the electorate has no choice but to broom all that shit -- and its makers -- right off Capitol Hill.

It's pure gummery practice. They're like a bunch of toothless old hounds, falling all over themselves trying to worry a cheap boot.

Runs against the likes of St Hill and Feinstein are the bunk. We need to avoid token runs -- symbolic quests -- gestures of goodness and light.

I say pick 15 toss-up House races -- races with a chance to be tipped to the elephants by a good third candidate run from the left, in the general election next November.

My belief -- '06 is a warning shot election. We need to make our points:

1. We can beat you Orthrians;
2. The donkeys retaking control of the House don't mean doodle to us.

"Union leaders said they would concentrate their efforts on 15 Senate races, 40 House races and governors races in California, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania," says the Times. I'd sure like to know which House and Senate races those are.

As a political movement, New Democrats with their neo-liberalism are yesterday's cop-out -- today they don't sell well. They're dead on their feet. Locus classicus: the Kerry petrified-forest '04 limbo act.

It's pretty bizarre, really. How come these bumbling, self-important showboats are in the funny papers, instead of mounting some kind of real challenge to Bush/Cheney and their wall-to-wall spying torturing pillaging and bloodletting? You'd think cutting a bunch of ghouls like that down to size would be child's play -- what with caudillo Bush and company acting like a bum-of-the-month Argentine junta.

But they haven't. A dog that doesn't bite isn't news, I suppose, but that's the real story: why haven't they been able to take any real advantage of a made-in-Heaven opportunity?

Long story, much discussed here. It leads to a further question: given their abject failures, why isn't this band of patchers and fillers, this bunch of missionless chorus boys and opportunists, already in the trash can?

My answer: it's just too soon.

The evidence is vague as to what will be the next incarnation of Orthrus' second head, when he decides he needs one again. At best the replacement mind set is today no more than a nagging nightmare rattling around the donk brain's left hemisphere. But just for kicks I'll make a crime scene sketch:

Let's call 'em the Neoprog movement -- a working title only, of course; believe me the final, for-publication label will be more... innovative. It damn well has to be, since the product is a shabby recycle.

As a quick take here's a few contrasting characteristics of the two -- Neolibs vs. Neoprogs:

For now, obviously, all is nebulosity. Beyond the obvious DLC eye-rollings -- evidence of massive disturbances in "the force" -- for the moment the party pros are hoping to hang on without a new credo, since they figure, or at least pray, that by doing absolutely nothing substantial between now and November, they may simply fall into power again.

so with all these deeper running morphs still un-emerged and unfledged, let's wait and see. My guess: regardless of all else that may seem bold and change-for-the-betterish in the next vision, we'll still need only a small skeleton key to unlock the door to its essential fraudulence. Like all prior donk mindsets, the next one will obey one rule: no matter what's talked up and rattled overhead no action will ever be taken to impede corporate "wealth accumulation."

PS: Soon I may be bold enough to try a historical parallel: a new Bryanism may be what's on tap -- how many cycles away? Three, maybe four?

As you're no doubt already aware, the first of the bi-annual ballot box stuffings we call 'primaries' has concluded in Texas. Since The Yee-Haw State is also the state with the most candidates from Rahm Emanuel's Sockpuppet Army, (nine out of 66) it's been of particular interest to me. The results:

• Duane Shaw (TX-01) - LOST PRIMARY
• Dan Dodd (TX-03) - NO CHALLANGER
• Charlie Thompson (TX-05) - NO CHALLANGER
• David Harris (TX-06) - NO CHALLANGER
• David Murff (TX-07) - LOST PRIMARY
• Ted Ankrum (TX-10) - PRIMARY RUNOFF
• Roger Wuan (TX-13) - NO CHALLANGER
• John Courage (TX-21) - NO CHALLANGER
• Rick Bola??os (TX-23) - NO CHALLANGER

One might be tempted to think that the local populace's rejection of Rahm's Sockpuppets, like a body rejecting an incompatable kidney, is bad news for Dr. Rahm. Au Contraire!

Near as I can tell, the TX "fighting dem" contingent are mere second stringers, johnny-come-latelies to the Sockpuppet Army, with little real DCCC support. The real primary test is coming up in a couple of weeks, when two of Rahm's Prowar Pets, Tammy "Lots of Local Support!" Duckworth (IL-06) and John "War Salesman" Laesch (IL-14) will be up against homegrown antiwar primary challangers. (A third, Dick Auman (IL-16), has no challanger.)

What does the future hold for Rahm's Rangers? Who will survive? Who will bite the dust? Stay Tuned!

I now want the donks to take the House back this fall. Go ahead gang, go ahead. I know the razz-berry is in order. Feel free. But right this minute if druthers were horses... I'm praying for the very same two-year theatre of cruelty I scorned right here on this site only months ago.

Why?

It's personal -- like all my generation's politics. I'm bored, bored to death, with both sides of the present gig. Bored with the press peek-a-boo, I see you. Bored with the pampas macho, the clownish White House menace. Sure its a vicious stand off that's left us all wondering what will Bush and Co. do to try to pull out of this preposterous nose dive? What's next -- "Bush drops further in polls -- approval rating in single digits outside of the Jim Crow south"?

It's the wrong kind of suspense. That's why I say give me two years of George and Dick teetering about on an impeachment tightrope.

Come on, tell me -- operators are standing by -- am I just being irresponsible here?

I say no, 'cause there'd be a whale-size side effect to all this theatre: once those two gunks out of Grimms' tales are up there on the high wire, what else can they do but try like hell not to fall off?

Exhibit A: the pending hot war with Iran becomes impossible -- right? -- ...after impeachery begins in the House.

That being said, how can i still continue my five year mission to destroy all donkey monsters?

Simple: zero in on a single paradigmatic big-enchilada wacko. Switch from my lovely dirty dozen gimmick -- the grand "not this time, fellahs" majority squelcheroo, to a tightly focused Judas goat trip.

And my guy -- the Orthrian kingpin bum to be fitted for a trip to the sacrificial mountaintop? Who else -- Tom Lantos.

That's right. I'll sell my soul just to see the last of this slimy cryptmaster. I'll pledge to use none of my exotic powers to stop the donk charge next November, at least House-wise. Oh hell, I'll even lay off the Senate races too. Nope, citizen Paine won't touch even a single hair on a single blue dog's back side. That's it straight up -- my arms go to the folded position till January '07 -- if if if you give me Lantos' cottony scalp to toss into my three ill-mannered dachshunds' portable kennel. That'll satisfy my bloodlust. The house can be yours to do with as you will for at least two years -- all yours, honorable ladies and gentlemen of the jackassery.

AP reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The head of the Republican Party, launching a broad indictment of the Democratic Party six months before midterm elections, is expected to charge Friday that the opposition can't find an election-year slogan, let alone agree on a broad agenda.

In an address to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Tennessee scheduled for Friday afternoon, Ken Mehlman will single out party leaders and two potential 2008 presidential candidates - Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry - for criticism on a range of issues, from national security to the economy to judicial nominees.

He's whipped the more "mainstream" Democrat Ciro Rodriguez twice now in close calls, which only shows that our screw-the-primaries strategy probably works better.

Though the Cuellar story has some interesting wrinkles. Rodriguez used to be the rep in the 28th CD, but Tom  Delay actually worked with this Bush-lovin' Hank in the '04 primary, which Cuellar won by 58 votes -- no, that is not a typo, 58.

In this year's rematch, at nearly the last minute, MoveOn.org finally moved -- they came crashing  after Hank, a gesture that was either too belated or downright fatal.

Bright light : the district gave almost 40% in the general last time to Hank's  Republican opponent, but strangely, this year there seems to be no Republican running.

CQ Politics analyzes Cuellar's victory this way:

Cuellar comes from Laredo in Webb County at the southern end of the elongated Hispanic-majority district, while Rodriguez comes from San Antonio in Bexar County near the northern end, and both ran up huge percentage-point victories on their home turf. But turnout was much higher in Cuellar's home base, giving him the raw vote numbers he needed to clinch victory.

Except the Kosniks, of course, who were all atwitter over this one -- you'da thought they were Leonidas and the Spartans at Thermopylae. Now that the Persians have gotten round them and burned Athens -- or at least San Antonio -- the former Spartans are busy constructing self-consolations -- walls against reality rather than against the enemy. Here's the Uber-Kos himself:

The bottom line: we helped a campaign that was the walking dead and gave it new life, pumped in resources, and made it competitive. We did much to even the playing field even if ultimately we came up tantalizingly short.

And yeah, I know "tantalizingly short", alongside "moral victories", is about as desirable as the Bubonic Plague. We want more. But this is a long-term movement, building from nothing. And we are sending notice to Democrats that they can't be Bush's bitch and expect a pass.

So we didn't kill off Cuellar, but we gave him an ass whooping where none was expected and made him sweat. That's the reason why Lieberman is sweating in Connecticut and lining up his dog and pony endorsement shows to flex his muscle. He can't take for granted that a no-name businessman with no political experience and zero connections in his state's political establishment will be a non-factor, not with what we've done for people like Dean and now Ciro.

Kos concludes his ruminations with this observation:

...If Cuellar had a Republican opponent in November, I would support Cuellar for the general. The time to fight for the soul of the party is in the primaries. Once the primaries are over, I'm happy to get behind whoever wins.

...If Cuellar had a Republican opponent in November, I would support Cuellar for the general ....

The time to fight for the soul of the party is in the primaries. Once the primaries are over, I'm happy to get behind whoever wins.

I can guess  the raison d'Kos -- he doesn't plan to be the impossible  losing end of a possible winner party for ever. No indeed. Some  dreamy  day, fortunes will be reversed and we progs will dominate, and the trogs will cravenly crouch at our feet. We'll be the ones grabbin' the high handle bars of the chopper, and Hillary and the Joes will be stuffed into the sidecar.

You might think Kos has got good company with this loyal trudge-on shtick -- after all, didn't the great Byran prove to be  a party man? Look at that Wall Street flat-rail Alton Parker he supported for Prez in the '04 election.

This isn't Bryan's America anymore. In fact, it wasn't anything like Bryan's America even when it was Bryan's America.

Now i can entertain myself trying to see the value of loyalty to the party of Jackson (if the Mexican war hadn't happened yet) and the party of FDR (if Harry hadn't kissed Churchill's iron-curtain ass yet) -- but today's Democracy? It's an in-name-only replica. The resemblance to anything remotely like a party worth supporting vanished while Stalin was still emptying his pipe on Malenkov's head.

The only way to restore the donkey is to destroy it -- or at the very least thrash its entrenched Trog-ery, in election after election, like a string of carnival ponies during the 'tween-show break.

Step one: call a few shots. Get their attention by calling, publically -- a few kills target a small select group of horrendous house donkey incumbent trogs, from districts that can actually tip against 'em unless all the progs that turn out to vote, vote for 'em.

This is about kill ratio, not body count -- showing, under certain clear conditions, we can wreck a scamster's gig.

To me, those flying cross primary runs against senators are pure agitprop, and not very successful agitprop at that. No, the key is actually to beat some donk black hat.

Now I haven't seen any real challenge out there with that specific mission. The Ciro gig in Texas CD-28 was a perfect example of how to totally not do this thing. From what I can see, if Rodriguez, instead of loyally getting shot down in the party primary, had run as an independent, not only might he have won himself, or at least denied Cuellar the seat by electing a Republican, he would have scared the balls off the blue dogs. But by playing by party rules, he fucked not only himself but everything the donks claim on their label to stand for.

Here at the blog, can play paper hat general -- but if we want our activity here to be more then a recreational memory hole, we need to find a way to help a few folks draw some real dishonest blood.

This site is not intended to be just a sounding board, but a node in a network -- an angry snarling network for sure, but no matter how many thousands we slay virtually, we need to actually help cut a few real trogs' legs off, too.

November fast approaches, but surely we can connect with a few real left side challengers -- get our eyes focused into a few actual districts -- join the bucket brigade behind some plausible knockoff outfits.

That's our goal -- right mates?

This thumbnail doesn't do it justice -- the image, at full scale and lovingly calibrated color, was disturbing in the extreme. I originally thought it was some kind of Animatronic or computer-generated image of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Kept the mag away from the kids, of course -- don't want to give 'em nightmares.

The cover was (as usual) a lot more interesting than the interminable, tedious, inside-baseball story (by Matt Bai) inside the legendarily vapid advertising supplement. Indeed, it was such a grisly visual hatchet-job that the Times took the unusual step of printing a photo retraction:

The cover photograph in The Times Magazine on Sunday rendered colors incorrectly for the jacket, shirt and tie worn by Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor who is a possible candidate for the presidency. The jacket was charcoal, not maroon; the shirt was light blue, not pink; the tie was dark blue with stripes, not maroon.

I guess the Bai article was really just a pretext for the photo, given the low literacy level of the Magazine's readership. It was pretty hard to tell what Matt's point was. But after reading through it a couple of times -- the sacrifices I make for this blog, let me tell you -- and reducing it at a slow simmer like veal stock, two points come into focus.

1. Warner is the only alternative to Hillary
2. Warner is even worse

Republicans, worried that their conservative base lacks motivation to turn out for the fall elections, have found a new rallying cry in the dreams of liberals about censuring or impeaching President Bush.

The proposal this week by Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, to censure Mr. Bush over his domestic eavesdropping program cheered the left. But it also dovetailed with conservatives' plans to harness such attacks to their own ends.

With the Republican base demoralized by continued growth in government spending, undiminished violence in Iraq and intramural disputes over immigration, some conservative leaders had already begun rallying their supporters with speculation about a Democratic rebuke to the president even before Mr. Feingold made his proposal.

Americans have no confidence that their government will be able to adequately respond if a disaster (natural or man-made) strikes their community, because its agencies are staffed not by professionals, but by political cronies and lobbyists....

But it's really pretty telling, isn't it, that this endearing, earnest folly is right up there in the bullet points of the press release. It says a lot about what the party of Jefferson and Jackson has become -- namely, the party of the diploma rentiers.

If the Democrats have their way, the 2006 Congressional elections will be the revenge of the mommy party.

Democratic women are running major campaigns in nearly half of the two dozen most competitive House races where their party hopes to pick up enough Republican seats to regain control of the House. Democratic strategists are betting that the voters' unrest and hunger for change - reflected consistently in public opinion polls - create the perfect conditions for their party's female candidates this year.

Emily's List, which essentially recommends female candidates who support abortion rights to its 100,000 members, reports a much heavier roster of House races than it carried two years ago. Getting recommended by Emily's List, whose members were responsible for $10 million in donations in 2004, is a major help to a campaign, candidates say.

Nope: it's "ethics reform, fiscal responsibility, affordable health care, more sensitivity to the environment." But hey, it's "connecting with moderates in both political parties."

Rahm himself, who is really a surprisingly candid guy, makes the calculation pretty clear:

"In an environment where people are disgusted with politics in general, who represents clean and change?" asks Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Women."

[Rahm-Mom Lois Murphy, a 48-year old lawyer, says] she senses an electorate that is "really, really" ready for change, tired of the ethics scandals, and convinced "that their government has been letting them down...."

"It's about change on so many levels," said Ms. Duckworth of her campaign, which she said would focus heavily on the need to improve and expand health care. "If being a woman underscores that, makes it clear that I'm going to be an effective agent of change, that's great."

And the necessary left spoiler move in enough "right " CD's this November is not gonna happen either .... not this time. Nope, for what, the twelfth electoral cycle in a row, the Democrats have once more rope-a-doped their all-too-loyal internal opposition.

Won't it be something if the Rahm strategy actually works -- hold still, do nothing, don't even breathe, and wait for the other side to screw up so bad that the prize falls in your lap. That'll be the major political backflip of the generation -- bring America back to where it left off being donk-tranced, back to a world that can pretend it's still after 1989 and before 1994 -- just the pet fantasy DLC/ humanist empire donks conjure every night at bedtime -- a chance to replay the post-cold war front 9: the Clinton years.

Sippose they do succeed -- what then? Matter for another post.

So you 50 or so real long-eared progs need to start rehearsing among yourselves the "either this this and this, or else" gambits.

The gist ?

We -- the donks, that is -- will run the empire better in five ways:

1. Our Rome will honor its legions with parades and treasure -- in fact our Rome will build more legions, and better breastplates and longer spears and sharper swords and ...
2. Our Rome will keep us secure by (among much else) checking every incoming galley for incendiary contraband.
3. Our Rome will stop relying on levantine wheat and oils by growing more homey cereals and fibers.
4. Our Rome will clean up the Mesopotamian mess ASAP, if not even sooner. Check with us in 12 months... You'll see. By then our legions will be on their way home... as opportunity allows... unless something happens....

It's the real gimmick -- the ever-postponed Hollywood ending, consummated love between the leads at long long last....

But we all know this remains a never-to-be seen final shot, in a scene never to take place. We'll never see the two get it on inside a closing red-white-and-blue backgrounded heart. This obscene apache dance will forever stay at least two scenes from consummation. Thank God for conflict and complication, eh?

The latest donk bray has been in the making since last fall, and now the hills are alive with it: "Come November, Congress is ours ..." or at least so sayeth the polls. And boy will we see a cleaning -- of both houses. Now it's to be mop the elephant plop. Dum Daddy Dum do-ed it.... so Dee Nanny Dee scoops it, enough to carry thru to the White House in '08.

But that's a few episodes away, not written yet, obviously. For now, it's just how do we define mommy-dearest style rectification -- put the coat hangers to the elephant's backside. "All this doodoo at home and abroad .... naughty, naughty!"

My diagnosis, and I expect JSP would agree: the Democrats' idea is to inherit some congressional seats, without doing anything to earn them, solely because the Republicans have fucked up so badly. Anything the Democrats could possibly say or do would work against this faute-de-mieux strategy, so they're maintaining a tomblike silence that would make the Sphinx look like a chatterbox. No doubt the Republicans, for their part, have an October Surprise up their sleeve, as usual.

But to my vast delight, it appears -- if the New York Times is to be believed -- that there is one issue the Democrats are willing to let peek out: stem cell research. Thus the Times:

Democrats are pressing their support for embryonic stem cell research in Congressional races around the country, seeking ... to exploit a division between conservatives who oppose the science and other Republicans more open to it.

The question of whether the government should support or limit stem cell research has cropped up... especially in suburban swing districts.

"What Democrats want to do is gin up their turnout in the suburbs and divide Republicans, and right now they may do that," said Jennifer E. Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "This is the first real wedge issue Democrats have had with Republicans."

The topic may not have the power of those frequently used by Republicans to rally their... base, like same-sex marriage and abortion....

On Tuesday, [Democratic Senate candidate Claire] McCaskill appeared in the central Missouri town of Fayette, population 2,793, for a wine-and-cheese reception at an antiques shop....

In fact I wonder whether we haven't seen an epochal flip-flop here. Maybe the Democrats' goal is to reduce turnout -- they've learned the lesson of '04, with its high turnout and very disappointing implications for the donks. Maybe the idea is that a race run on stem cells will be so soporific that only the brainiacs will show up to vote -- and of course, brainy souls that they are, they will pull the donkey lever, as always, just like the merest fool.

A man (call him Horace) went on a safari in darkest Africa with some native guides. They traveled on foot, going deep into the jungle where they could hear the screeching of birds and howling of wild cats and other fierce wild animals.

After a few days, Horace noticed that there was a constant drumming noise in the background. He asked the leader of the guides what the drumming was. He got no answer, just a stony silence. As they traveled deeper into the jungle the drumming got even louder. Horace tried again to find out what the drumming meant by asking the other native guides, but he still got no answer.

Finally one morning, after days of marching to this drumming (which by now was sounding quite ominous), the drums suddenly stopped. The native guides screamed and ran into the jungle to hide in the undergrowth. The leader remained, but he was trembling with fear. Horace asked "What is wrong? Why have the drums stopped?"

The native guide replied "Very bad."

"What?" asked Horace, who was expecting the worst.

The guide answered "When drum stops -- next comes viola solo!"

Methinks the October surprise will be surprising, but will not be in October.

Let's see, what are the options --

1. Produce the head of Osama bin Laden (without the rest of him, I mean)
2. Nuke Iran
3. Nuke Manhattan and blame Osama
4. Subsidize gasoline
5. Indict Hillary Clinton -- for something -- anything! (Please let it be this one!)

Hannibal and friends crossing the Rhone, en route to the Alps

That's what friends and supporters of Neville Chamberlain called what history calls appeasement.

Though maybe I'm a few years behind the curve here. Maybe by now we're really into that second great act of pusillanimity, the Sitzkrieg, better known as the phoney war -- the period from Danzig to the Ardennes, when the Franco-Brit juggernaut faced down the Fuehrer mostly with loud farts.

Amy's clips a few fourth-estate samples:

"For Democrats, Many Verses, but No Chorus"

"Democratic candidates for Congress are reading from a stack of different scripts these days"

"Scattershot messages reflect splits within the party"

"Democrats Struggle to Seize Opportunity"

Why after 72 years of big-horned statesmanship have the Dems gone so back-door-to-history? Amy says, "Perhaps ... they have little left to lose." She works up quite a dossier -- if you read the article, I promise you'll be amazed to find just what masked marvels, what these caped and cowled crusaders the congressional Democrats really are.

Amy seems to think the Democrats have prove wrong the old maxim that you can't beat something with nothing; to hear her tell it, the donks are poised to re-take Congress in November. Of course she culminates with the inevitable -- "Leading this charge" to power is the Redeemer Maximus, who else, pitchfork Rahm Emanuel himself. As Amy adds breathlessly, he is after all "the man they call Rahmbo."

In 1930 the Depression broke the elephantarians of the day for a generation -- no, two generations. The fall election produced a donk house, if by a razorish margin. The House top jackass was John Nance Garner of Texas.

Cactus Jack still faced a Hoover White House, so instead of aiding "efforts by the administration to bring relief to the people," Jack led a very clever obstructionist donk flank fire -- two more years of "let the elephants boil in their own mud bath." A kind of domestic "let it get even worse," a "cunctation" with bite-your-ass partisan spite.

Is this the Rahm and Nan plan?

The story has two stages: stage one -- donks gain the white house two years later. Enter the New Deal era, as Hoover flees the stage of history festering from scalp to groin with stink worms. Cactus Jack got maneuvered into what he famously called a "bucket of warm piss" -- i.e. the Vice Presidency, for a two-term hitch.

Second stage: this clever feller from the land of sage and sidewinders becomes, in FDR's second term, a leader in the resurrection of old-style white-sheet dixie donkery -- a new confederacy of reaction, anti-worker, anti-civil rights, anti-FDR -- ultimately anti everything without a white pecker and a plug of chaw in its cheek. In short, a full-bore cotton-country counterpart to New York's Al Smith.

So let us absorb this clever gent's legacy, and beware his avatars.

The popular sea change may still not be enough for a House change, given the Repub lock system. According to one academic study, the Repubs are way better distributed CD-wise. A majority of CDs are Repub-friendly -- while Dems are lumped on top of each other in a minority of CDs. Kind of a minority-majority, majority-minority gig

And oh, this just in too...

The old Dixie split ticket voting (CD donk / Repub prez) is down from a high in the 60-70's of 40% to a mere 13% today -- practically random error range. Is that a gerrymander effect too -- and if so, how?