Text 17610, 107 rader
Skriven 2006-01-28 11:14:13 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
     Kommentar till en text av Alan Hess
Ärende: Republicans play game better
====================================
Alan Hess -> all wrote:
 AH> I've said this myself - the Republicans play the game of politics better
 AH> than the Democrats do.

 AH> *******

 AH>
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.kinsley27jan27,1,7957772.
 AH>  story?coll=bal-oped-headlines
 AH> Reality: Republicans are better at playing political games


 AH> By MICHAEL KINSLEY

 AH> January 27, 2006

 AH> It seems to be time once again to play Kick the Democrats. Everyone can
 AH> play, including Democrats. The rules are simple. When Republicans lose
 AH> elections, it is because they didn't get enough votes. When Democrats
 AH> lose elections, it is because they have lost their principles and lost
 AH> their way. Or they have kept their principles, which is an even worse
 AH> mistake.

 AH> They represent no one who is not actually waiting in line for a latte at
 AH> a Starbucks within 150 yards of the East or West coastline. They are
 AH> mired in trivial lifestyle issues like, oh, abortion and gay rights and
 AH> Americans killing and dying in Iraq, while the Republicans serve up meat
 AH> and potatoes for real Americans like privatizing Social Security and
 AH> making damned sure the government knows who is Googling whom in this
 AH> great country.

 AH> Just repeat these formulas until a Democrat has been sent into frenzies
 AH> of self-flagellation, or reduced to tears.

 AH> There is always a pick-up game of Kick the Democrats going on somewhere.
 AH> But something about the Alito confirmation - the pathetic and apparently
 AH> surprising inability of 45 Democratic senators to stop 55 Republicans
 AH> from approving anyone they want - seems to have made the game suddenly a
 AH> lot more popular.

 AH> How dire is it for the Democrats? George Will noted on TV the other day
 AH> that they have lost five of the past seven presidential elections.

 AH> The official illustration of the Kick the Democrats movement is a map of
 AH> the United States showing huge swaths of red with just a few tiny
 AH> accents of blue. Of course, this gives an unrealistic advantage to big
 AH> states with few people. But then so does our electoral system. The
 AH> deeper flaw is the assumption that everybody in red states is red and
 AH> ditto the blues.

 AH> A map showing red and blue people, not states, would look a homogenous
 AH> purple. John Kerry got 43 percent of the vote in states that went for
 AH> George Bush, and Mr. Bush got 45 percent in Kerry states. Liberals are
 AH> not nearly so rare and so culturally isolated as the official map would
 AH> suggest. This is little comfort to Democrats when it comes to the math
 AH> of winning elections.

 AH> This is not an argument for complacency. Obviously the party that has
 AH> lost the White House, both houses of Congress and now the courts needs
 AH> some new ideas and new energy. But it seems undeniably true to me -
 AH> though many deny it - that the Republicans simply play the game better.

 AH> I've been impressed all over again the past couple weeks with the
 AH> Republicans' skill at political stone soup - making something out of
 AH> nothing. In this case it's a remark by Hillary Clinton comparing
 AH> Congress to a plantation.

 AH> Near as I can tell, the alleged objection to "plantation" is - by
 AH> analogy to the Holocaust - that any metaphorical use of the word is an
 AH> insult to the real slaves and their descendants. This particular stone
 AH> soup would be overheated even if the ingredients were fresh and sincere.

 AH> What's especially impressive is how the get-Hillary campaign was not
 AH> even slowed by the discovery that Newt Gingrich had used the same
 AH> metaphor back when he was somebody. A hilarious op-ed this week in The
 AH> Wall Street Journal explained that while Ms. Clinton's remark was
 AH> "pandering" and patronizing ("Must blacks have their slave past rubbed
 AH> in their face ... ?"), Mr. Gingrich "had the good taste to cast himself
 AH> as a slave who would lead the slave rebellion." Well, each to his own
 AH> good taste, I suppose.

 AH> And then there was a small 2001 item in the Journal's news section about
 AH> Vice President Dick Cheney spending the weekend shooting quails at the
 AH> "plantation" of a rich Republican contributor. Hillary Clinton uses the
 AH> word "plantation" while Dick Cheney actually goes to one. But that's the
 AH> Democrats for you: all talk and no action.

 AH> Michael Kinsley is a commentator who lives in Seattle. His e-mail is
 AH> michael.kinsley@hotmail.com.

 AH> Copyright + 2006, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery

Kinsley's obvious sarcasm aside, Republicans have been beating Democrats   for
over a decade, but like most liberals, he totally misses the point why.  With
the exception of people living on the east/west coasts what matters to people
most is bread and butter issues like a job, decent schools, national defense,
and limited government.  The average American out in fly-over country would
rather do for himself and his family and friends than have the government do it
for them, and they resent the hell out of politicians telling them how to live
their lives.

As long as people still care about the basics, they will vote for those who
provide them, and the Democrats will continue to lose.  And they still won't
get it.

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