Captain's Quarters takes a look at the latest E.J. Dionne piece in the Washington Post. Captain Ed has a soft spot for E.J., and I admit I like him a bit, too - he's a good enough writer to make the reader visualize his furrowed brow, his wringing hands, and his quivering grip on reality. As usual, Dionne is fretting about the Democrats' chances of blowing yet another election but, equally as usual, he blames Karl Rove.
Cap'n Ed is kind enough to point out E.J.'s error:
Karl Rove is not their problem. Their problem is the lack of a Karl Rove.
The Democrats have an image problem, as Dionne writes, but the image problem springs from divisiveness and the lack of any coherent ideological message or policy platform. That divisiveness springs from one main source: Howard Dean. He has spent far too much time railing on about his hatred of "Republicans, and everything they stand for" and not enough time building the kind of relationships with elected party leaders and donors to create a consensus direction for the Democrats. People pointed out this probable result at the time of Dean's appointment as chairman of the DNC, and apparently no one but the DNC is surprised by the result.Dean offers voters the same, tired Bush hatred that lost the Democrats three successive national elections, elections they arguably could have won.
Read it all at the link above.
The fixation of so many Democrats upon Rove is frankly amusing. In their honor, I have composed/stolen a sonnet - with sincere apologies to William Wordsworth, whose work came into the public domain over a century ago:
Karl Rove is too much with us; late and soon,
Kicking and screaming, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Congress that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
As Sheehan bares her bosom to the moon,
Moonbats that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this Election eve,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Kerry rising from the sea;
Or hear old Howard blow his bullhorn.
The truly "secret advantage" Republicans have is they get to run against Democrats.
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Comments (4)
It should also be pointed o... (Below threshold)1. Posted by yetanotherjohn | August 15, 2006 3:51 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
It should also be pointed out that Rove doesn't create the message, he refines it. I think the republican policy to win the war on terror and the democratic policy to take stands that endanger winning the war on terror are both founded in the fundamental beliefs of each party. It wasn't Rove deciding for the republicans that we need to win the war on terror. Given the decision to win the war on terror, he worked out which voters would be influenced by that, how to compare and contrast the republican and democratic positions, etc.
The American voters then decide between the two parties which party most closely matches their stance on the war. The voter may be to the right or left of the parties. They may think that the situation in Iran calls for the immediate use of nuclear weapons or that the US military should be completely disbanded to appease the terrorists. Since neither party supports either of those views, the voter then has to decide to waste his vote on a third party, support the party closest to their view or not vote.
So before a Rove can take a good idea, shape it, sharpen it and see that it is delivered in a coherent method, you have to have a good idea. And that is the real failing of the democratic party. They call for us to cut and run in Iraq, but never explain how our allies in Muslim countries would view our leaving Iraq in the lurch, never talk about how this would be granting a big victory to the terrorist which they would use to recruit and grow stronger, never explain how since the US was attacked before going into Iraq how our leaving Iraq would in any way make us safer.
The lack of good ideas is what the democrats need. Then they need a Rove.
1. Posted by yetanotherjohn | August 15, 2006 3:51 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on August 15, 2006 15:51
2. Posted by Christie Mayo | August 15, 2006 3:54 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Fantastic “stolen” poem, based on one of my favorites of all time ”the world is too much with us late and soon.” However, in the article you stole some facts and rewrote them. The Democrats did not lose, they won the majority of votes. The Republicans, allegedly with Karl Rove as the architect, stole the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections through various strategies and most notable and well documented, through use of rigged electronic voting machines in Ohio in 2004. Where is the mainstream media’s moral outrage? If this trend continues, America will be an empire not a democracy.
2. Posted by Christie Mayo | August 15, 2006 3:54 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on August 15, 2006 15:54
3. Posted by Jim Addison | August 15, 2006 5:05 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
John, you're correct: the Democrat's haven't had a new idea since Ted Kennedy's 1972 "In Critical Condition," where they first proposed nationalizing health care. Other than that, it's the same old stuff: raising taxes, submitting our national defense and security for UN approval, and new ways of redistributing income from productive to nonproductive use. What's a party to do?
Christie, I'm a big Wordsworth fan, too. I put him right behind Keats . . . but I keep rereading Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, and just can't find any reference to "popular votes" or a national majority thereof having anything at all to do with electing the President.
Your imagined scenarios in 2000 and 2004 rival any opium dream of Coleridge's . . .
;-)
3. Posted by Jim Addison | August 15, 2006 5:05 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on August 15, 2006 17:05
4. Posted by Charles_in_Texas | August 16, 2006 12:18 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
This is SO Funny AND SO True! Heh! Heh! Ha! Ha! Hee! Hee! Alright!
"The truly "secret advantage" Republicans have is they get to run against Democrats".
4. Posted by Charles_in_Texas | August 16, 2006 12:18 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on August 16, 2006 12:18