Aquarian Weekly 6/21/06
REALITY CHECK

THE DEMOCRATS ARE FINISHED
Reasons Why Even With A Fixed Game, The GOP Will Remain in Power

This crazy half-reasoned notion perpetuated by the rooting press and a hopeful citizenry that the Republican Party is doomed and that come November the putrid approval ratings of this mediocre-to-bungling president, along with soaring gas prices, a vacillating stock market, a botched-to-bankrupt war effort, a litany of investigations, and a landslide of hideous Capitol Hill corruption, will swing voters to the Democratic Party is at best silly, and at worst, stupid. The Republicans are not going anywhere. And the Democrats? Ha…ha, ha, ha…woo-ha, ha…gulp...ho, ho, ha ha heeeee!

Are you people out of your fucking minds? Have you slept through the past six years of this administration and GOP rule? These guys can do anything. It doesn't matter what annoying crap these morons spew or what sort of questionably moral or legal or barely decipherable programs or issues or theories they throw out there, they are here to stay. Count on it.

Sure, I'm a history guy. You can cite tons of recent history that says that no president can be in the low-30s in approval ratings with all of the lunacy that has passed for governance over the past few years and have his party retain power in the Congress. But I would have bet the Clemens Estate that the bloodied corpse of this man would have been sent packing two years ago. He's pretty much stunk up the joint since those towers in Manhattan hit the ground, and was well below the historical bottom line poll numbers for winning in 2004, but he was re-elected - by an even larger overall margin. And his party retained power then, just as they will this November.

Oh, you'll say, "But Mr. Campion, or James, or dumb-ass, since then you have the Katrina screw-ups, the failed restructuring of Social Security, the Medicare Bill gaff, the Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Tom Delay and Bill Frist fall-out, the Abramoff revelations, the appalling 9/11 commission report, the Abu Ghraib horrors, the Guantanamo Bay fiasco, the vice president shooting, and, Jesus, man, this god awful clusterfuck of a war!"

All good points, and you might add that even I, for a short time, was duped into thinking these maniacs were screwed. I even wrote it down and sent it to press with my name above it, and this paper printed it. But they are not screwed. On the contrary, I believe the results of the 2006 mid-term elections will, for all intents and purposes, kill the Democratic Party. It almost happened once, back in 1976, when all Jimmy Carter had to do after the Watergate disaster was show up. Then he barely hung on against Gerald Ford, a man for whom even the staunchest Republicans represented the ultimate stuck pig.

And so, I can confidently predict another Republican victory (maybe a few seats go, but not enough to swing power) marking the end of the Democratic Party, because the signs are there. You know how these religious fanatics are always looking for signs of the apocalypse or the second coming of Jesus or Mohammad or Charlie Chaplin? I happen to be able to read the clouds, the writing on the proverbial political wall - and fans, the writing is clear: Don't count on fun and impeachment, and more investigations, or anything like that. Count on more of the same.

It is the Democrats last chance, and they will squander it. Then they will whither and die.

Item: Last week in San Diego, the first major symbol of possible Republican angst in the voting booth reared its head when Republican Brian Bilbray beat Democrat Francine Busby to replace imprisoned former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in the 50th Congressional District. In a contest the Union-Tribune correctly dubbed as "a gauge of voter attitudes for the national midterm elections", Bilbray carried the day. It is well known that San Diego is faithfully conservative, but so is the majority of this country, and say what you want about this Bush Kabal, Duke Cunningham is one of the most corrupt and insane politicians to emerge from a gooey quagmire of reprehensible behavior, who took stealing, cheating, lying, and overall villainy to new and exciting heights. Did it matter? Nope.

Another significant sign that the Democrats' Waterloo is nigh is this whole Constitutional Ban on Gay Marriage nonsense. Of course Bush, who failed to even utter this proposal to "stabilize society" since the week before his re-election, has brought this steaming pile of bigotry out of mothballs to galvanize the base. Who cares? It does! And that's all that counts.

Item: Nearly 60% of America opposes gay marriage, and some 42% favor some kind of national law to ban it. Whipping these atavistic zombies into a frenzy is sound politics, and speaks to a larger issue - many congressional districts teeter on the precipice of social issues, whether local or not, and Republicans currently have a stranglehold on it. Period. Push comes to shove, they will use wacky fringe issues to batter Democrat opponents, and recent history shows it works like gangbusters.

The final problem with extrapolating the paltry Bush approval ratings or the avalanche of bad news pummeling Congress weekly to build a "voter anger" or "voter need for change" theory is that even though only a jabbering simpleton, or, say, Sean Hannity, can even fathom contemplating this current government as remotely decent, the majority of people in this country like Bush. I like him. I think he's just a lousy president and a doofus, but I don't dislike him personally. He's not a bad man, just overwhelmed and stymied by his own limitations - mentally, emotionally, politically, and, well, in just about every base facet of human capacity to function.

So, even though, when forced to give an answer on whether Captain Shoo-in knows what the hell he's doing, people will respond, "Not really." But if they think he should be tarred and feathered or run out the District of Columbia on a rail? "Nah."

To the voting public, Bush and the Republicans are like a mediocre, but lovable, ballplayer, that, although deserves booing, also engenders support.

Hey, I get a lot of mail from angered and fed up people, there's just not enough of you to pull out 14 Congressional seats in four months. Not when you include the Red states involved and the overall philosophy of this country.

Face it. The Democrats are finished. Then it will be left up to the Republicans to completely annihilate this republic and FINALLY wake up the rest of us to consider finishing them off as well. Believe me when I tell you, it's for the best.

Or you can pray to whatever god you might subscribe to that a woman is elected president in '08.

Ha…ha, ha, ha…woo-ha, ha…gulp...ho, ho, ha ha heeeee!

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