Republicans Always Win

Back in the day, Karl Rove was considered by many to be some sort of political mastermind; a man so clever that he could devise strategies in which you already lost before he even implemented them.  And as I've always argued, Rove was little more than a thug in a suit. 

For as much as he strategized and schemed, it was only his insults and dirty tricks that did any good; while the strategies often blew up in his face.  And now the dude is resigned to hack political analysis in which he accuses everyone else of doing what everyone already knows he did, and outside the world of conservative hackdom, he's as untouchable as poo on a stick.

And I assumed that this fear of Republicans would die once Rove was gone.  But no, apparantly it wasn't Rove that these people feared; but any sort of hope that we might possibly win.  And so no matter what the political story is, they'll assure you that Democrats suck and will lose again, even after they've won.

The Shakey Liberals

And here's a case in point: The Shelby Shakedown; in which a desperate conservative senator completely overplayed his hand and gave Dems a stick to beat Republicans with.  When this story came out, we were assured by progressives that Democrats would lose because we suck. 

As one commenter stated:

Dems are really lousy spinners and this will somehow be turned on it's ear and become Obama's fault for attempting to cut waste fraud and abuse from the huge republican created deficits the Republicans are so worried about.

And another:

How many of you folks want to make a bet on the number of "senior" Democrats who will get on the air on TV and say something about this and get mad?  My guess is "0".

And another:

Reid will be out there worrying himself to death again. Obama will have some elegant, but totally detached rhetoric against it, I'm sure.

But of course, in reality, the Whitehouse did respond sharply; as did Reid's office.  And it was reported in the media.  Yet even on a post which cited multiple attacks on Shelby, we were assured that Democrats were going to lose because, "as usual," they couldn't get their message out. 

Like this commenter:

I am so over my parties inability to govern. Calling out the opposing party and getting that message out is a part of governing and we are failing miserably....The 'megaphone gap' is our own damn fault.

And yes, he wrote that on a post which cited multiple senior level Democrats calling out Shelby and using it as a club against Republican obstructionism; as reported in the NY Times.  And when I pointed that out, I was assured that these Dems just weren't important enough and that Obama himself was going to have to attack Shelby directly for this to have any effect.

And here we are, a mere five days after the story inititally broke (which included a weekend), and Shelby has already retracted his hold and is now lying about what transpired.  And so you'd think that people might actually give Dems a little credit for doing what they should have done and you'd be wrong.  While most commenters knew at least to ignore this story, we still got comments like:

I disagree. The Republican strategy has always been to throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. If Shelby had been successful, he'd have successfully derailed Obama's ability to make nominations with an absolute minimum effort.

[....]
That is not progress for the Democrats. The fact that the Democrats might be patting themselves on the back for this is evidence that the Republican strategy is working just fine.

That's right, even in a story in which a Republican got called out and embarrassed for his actions, forcing him to lie about what he did to cover his own ass, Democrats lose.  And if they even think they won, it's even worse for them.  We fell for their trap, yet again, as evidenced by the fact that Shelby didn't resign or shoot himself on the Senate floor...or something.

Dems Win Too

And what's maddening is that, yes, I understand the reasoning behind what they're saying.  Yes, Republicans are tricky bastards and you can lose simply by playing the game.  But that doesn't mean this is always happening.  Republicans aren't always winning.  In fact, I daresay that they lose far more than they win.  Yes, they're loud and proud, and no, they don't admit defeat or slink off into disgrace.  Shelby isn't going to suffer greatly from this and after a few days, everyone will forget that this even happened and some Democrats will insist it never does.

But all the same, we won and they lost.  And we won because we hit Shelby for his stupid move and the media reported it.  Did they report it as much as they should have?  No.  But it did get reported and we won.  And this is generally par for the course.  Democrats actually have many of these little victories.  And for as much as we're assured that they always lose, history shows we win big victories too.

And the reason these people insist that we always lose is because it gives them an excuse to be cynical and abstain from playing the game.  It's much easier to sit on the sidelines criticizing everyone, than getting involved and trying to win.  And for as much as they insist that Dems are weak for not attacking Republicans more, it is obvious that their real targets are Democrats. 

Apparently, these people won't be satisfied until the Republican Party dissolves itself and the entire progressive agenda is implemented until the end of time.  Anything short of that is total defeat and you're a fool for not seeing that.