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2006-06-22 Home Front: Politix

Peggy Noonan: Washington Democrats think their core voters are barking mad.

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Posted by Mike 2006-06-22 10:37|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The Dems created their own 'Red Guard'. They just haven't figured out like Mao, that in the end you have to turn on them or lose control and everything.

Posted by Whinetle Grush9406 2006-06-22 11:25|| 2006-06-22 11:25|| Front Page Top

#2 It was their choice, the went for the anti-Bush, anti-Everything American vote and now that's what they have. Pity it isn't enough to get you elected.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2006-06-22 12:05|| 2006-06-22 12:05|| Front Page Top

#3 "In the past, Republican leaders in Washington bowed either symbolically or practically to the presumed moral leadership and cleanness of vision of the people back home. They understood the base wanted tax cuts and spending cuts, and for serious reasons. The base had deep qualms about abortion. The base intuitively recoiled from big government: They knew the best arrangement was maximum possible power to the individual and limited, policed, heavily checked power to the state. Or, as some back home might have put it, Don't put your faith in governments, which are made by men; put your faith in individuals, who are made by God.

Republican leaders in the capital bowed to this wisdom--if not in their actions, at least quite often in their hearts.

Now they seem to bow less. They know the higher wisdom on such issues as immigration. They feel less fealty to the insights of the base. They know more than the base, are more experienced than the base, have a more nuanced sense of reality. And as for conservative social issues groups, the politicians resent those nagging, whining pushers-for-the-impossible who are always threatening to stay home or go elsewhere. (Where?)

Some Washington Republicans have been in leadership so long they've learned--they've learned too well!--that politics is the art of the possible. It is. But this is not an excuse to be weak, or ambivalent, or passive, or superior

...

Democratic leaders in Washington are in a worse position than Republican leaders in Washington. Neither likes their base, really, and both think they are smarter. But the Democrats think, deep down, that their base is barking mad. The Republicans don't. They just think their base is a bore."

She has the Republicans in Congress pegged, too.

Posted by KBK 2006-06-22 12:39|| 2006-06-22 12:39|| Front Page Top

#4 This is roughly cyclical. The two parties vacillate between their radical wings controlling their agenda, and from conservatives and moderates running things.

The democrats were riding high on the hog with the election of old Frank, a devastating defeat for the republicans. So for many years republicans accepted their minority status and moderates joined with the democrats to get more middle of the road legislation. This marginalized the extreme wings of both parties.

Finally the scale tipped from moderate democrat to conservative republican, with the election of Eisenhower. This so stimulated the republican radicals that they briefly reversed course by putting Goldwater, a radical candidate, up against Johnson in 1964.

The resulting defeat humbled the republican radicals and set the stage for both the rise of the republican conservatives and the democrat radicals in 1968.

This set the democrats on the path to loss across the country, on which they are still sliding. Their recovery will only come when their moderates embrace the conservative republican platform, and marginalize both radical party wings. When they vote republican, and are rewarded with largesse, it should help them regain control of the democrat party from the radicals.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-06-22 15:03|| 2006-06-22 15:03|| Front Page Top

#5 Madman Boogabooga Gal gotsa way with words.

Posted by 6 2006-06-22 16:23|| 2006-06-22 16:23|| Front Page Top

#6 They've created a monster, Deanazoids

Posted by Captain America 2006-06-22 18:13|| 2006-06-22 18:13|| Front Page Top

#7 Since we know the democrat base is anti-American leftists, then, why not send them all to Cuba in exchange for any Cuban who would prefer to leave Communism for a better life ? Cuba has everything they love, controlled media, social medicine, no pesky right wing books, only the police have guns, what's not to like ?

Posted by wxjames 2006-06-22 18:33|| 2006-06-22 18:33|| Front Page Top

#8 why should I listen to a woman who scoffed, mocked and ridiculed Bush when he introduced his idea that he would help to quell terrorism by introducing Democracy around the world?

Sure, I like what she's saying here - but it's not exactly rocket science that the Democratic party has become the party of frothing lunatics.

Posted by 2b 2006-06-22 19:18|| 2006-06-22 19:18|| Front Page Top

23:54 3dc
23:34 Redneck Jim
23:27 RD
23:27 ed
23:14 Mary Lu
23:01 trailing wife
22:55 Robert Crawford
22:53 Redneck Jim
22:51 Eric Jablow
22:50 Mike
22:47 Warthog
22:46 trailing wife
22:44 Kalle
22:44 Warthog
22:39 trailing wife
22:28 Oldspook
22:23 Robert Crawford
22:22 Frank G
22:22 Oldspook
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22:14 Frank G
22:12 Frank G