The Ex-Foley-ation of the GOP

Pardon my lateness coming to the story during my hiatus. When the Foley story broke, I was disgusted but not extremely interested in the story. I thought "Ok, the Dems scored a point or two. All's fair in love and war." As the story unfolds at each new development I have become increasingly more interested. After all one of my favorite topics is when something backfires on the Democrats. It may be, however, that Democrat repercussions will occur in the future. The nature of such sensationalism is that people get caught up in the short term, then later as they think about things they realize there is much more to the story than the Dems and their media water carriers focused on. As people think about this they will realize:

- The timing of this story is very interesting. Both the media and the Dems are spinning the story in the light of protecting the youthful pages from being exploited. However, it is obvious that both had this information for months and felt that an October Surprise was more important than protecting other pages. The timing mixed with revelations that events were not quite as initially described once again shows how very little we can trust the media. One important note about the Dems. They can never wait until the opportune time to drop their "bomb" AND when they do they always overplay their hand. While this bomb was timed for the election, it was at least 2 weeks too early. In 2 more weeks when people think of Foley, they will think of an irritating mosquito but not quite remember why.

- There is a drastic inconsistency in how scandals (sexual or otherwise) are handled depending on whether the offender is a Republican or Democrat. We have quite a number of examples to pick from. We have Ted Kennedy who is virtually revered by the Dems in a lionized fashion. The death at Chappequidic was not enough to dislodge him from politics (though it did deprive him of the presidency). Being one of the bread slices of a "waitress sandwich" brings no shame to Ted, and does not prevent the other slice (Chris Dodd) from having presidential aspirations. Rep. Studds repeated re-election should cause a red face to every Democrat across the country. Barney Frank and the gay prostitution run in his house transformed him from virtually unknown to a highly revered member of the party. Finally, we have Bill Clinton transcending IM dirty talk with a page, to phone sex and sexual activity with an intern. While the GOP sleazebag resigns on the spot, the Dem digs his heels in and is surrounded by Democratic leadership in the rose garden for moral support (misnomer). Dems hang on for dear life during their scandals and with a lot of image resucitation help from the media they weather it. Foley's immediate response was to resign. While this in no way applies any virtue to Foley, it should apply great shame to the Dems who have not resigned when they have disgraced their office.

- The sad fact that this is all the Dems have. How many times have we heard recently that this Foley scandal will be what pushes the Dems over the top. Isn't it sad that a list of real solutions to problems is not what is promoted to push them over the top? The Dems have banked on the following from the voters:
1) That they have the mentality of the Vietnam generation rather than the Greatest Generation
2) That they will resent the Bush administration taking every step possible to protect the American people from terror
3) That they will want to throw the bums out over a 4.6 unemployment rate
4) That having been angry at high gas prices, they will become angry at falling gas prices
5) That they will get angry with the GOP over a weak immigration stance while not getting angry over the Dems weaker stance
6) That one bad GOP that resigned and was denounced by the rest of the GOP somehow makes the other GOP look bad, while decades of supporting perverts like Studds, Kennedy and Clinton make the Dems look good

In short it basically boils down to the Dems banking on their voters overlooking all of their scandals, perversions, and foolishness but that those who normally vote for the GOP to stay home. They have not positioned their win on MORE Dem votes, but LESS GOP votes. There is not one category where the GOP deserves to booted out of office (and there are several) where
the Dems have shown they deserve to be elected into office. The Dem strategy reminds me of the proverb "Even the Fool when he opens not his mouth, is considered wise". The fun part if they do pull it off is that after the election they will open their mouth and reveal their bankruptcy of solutions.

My current view is that GOP will lose 7 seats in the house and 2 in the Senate. I hope to have a weekly prediction on these numbers until the election. I hope to also list my predictions to some key races. That is always fun.

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Finally, on a personal note I have determined to plan for only one weekly post for now. If time permits I may add more but I have other priorities that continue to demand my attention. Look for the weekly post around the weekends.