Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Dem Momentum: Winning '08

I was talking to someone tonight who had heard from someone else the idea that, if we won back the Congress tonight, that this would make it more likely that the Republicans would keep the Whitehouse in 2008. And while there could be something to that theory, it’s entirely mistaken. It’s from people who have taken a scenario out of context and think that it applies to every similar scenario.

Because this time around, tonight’s victory will only hurt the GOP’s chances in 2008. Because they’ve lost the momentum. Forward momentum and the air of invincibility were always ace cards for the Bush Republicans, and we’ve totally taken that from them. Now they’ve got reverse momentum and are clearly vincible. And people that had granted them superpowers and supported them because they were winners will clearly rethink that equation; and that includes the media. That’s not to say that they’ll start giving us the handjobs they’ve been doling-out to Republicans for the past six years. But this has put a serious dent into the myth that Republicans are popular and represent America.

And because the Dems have their work cut out for them, it’s most likely that they’ll start cleaning up the mess and pleasing people. And that’ll hurt the Republicans even more. That we could fix what they screwed up. And traditional “centrists” like McCain are going to have to come to us to work on our terms; and that will hurt him with his base and make him look like a pansy to everyone else. Not that he even wants to, but he doesn’t have a choice. It’s just in his personality to be the “maverick” to whoever’s in power. And with Republican Congressmen looking bad and the Whitehouse shooting blanks, that leaves us as the power-brokers to deal with.

I’m not suggesting that the whole world begins today with candy and rose petals, or that this will be a cakewalk at all. I’m just saying that this put a heavily serious dent into any Republican presidential aspirant and that this sets us up for a whole new context to consider Democratic contenders. Hell, we don’t even need right-leaning Hillary anymore, who is already looking somewhat anachronistic. We just need a Democrat who will make other Democrats feel proud. We’ve got the momentum now, and we can use this to roll straight into the Whitehouse in ’08 and complete the job that we’ve started today.


Oh, and as one serious reminder: No longer will Senate-House bill negotiations be between Republican connivers attempting to insert unpopular crap that almost nobody wanted. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg regarding the huge changes that are now afoot. It really is a new day.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Expect the following arguement to start any minute:

"The Democrats have only been in power a little while and they've already gotten us stuck in an unwinnable war in Iraq!"

Stolen shamelessly from Stephen Colbert.

Faded said...

And the momentum will only build as long as Democrats can open REAL investigations into the worst of the Republicans' corruption. As more and more Americans come to the "Nixon WAS a crook!" gasp! realization- we will see a real tidal wave. Now what we need is for Democrats to stay out of trouble and stay focused. No wallowing in the mud like the "contract with America" crowd. And maybe we can save the lives of a few thousand military men and women while we are at it.