Sifting Through the Wreckage and Other Strange Ruminations

It has been a considerably long time since I've crossed paths with that blubbering fool, Rush Limbaugh, and much to my disapppointment they crossed once more when I logged on to the DailyK this morning, greeted by Rush's cruel, twisted assault against the military record of Paul Hackett, who, at last check, had just barely lost to the Wicked Witch of the Ohio Republican Party, Jean Schmidt.  

Jean was clearly in a much closer race than Republicans had expected, and early on it almost looked like the filthy, rotten Ohio GOP would pay for years of corruption under Gov. Bob Taft and former Gov. George Voinovich, currently manifesting itself in the form of the Coingate Scandal which has already claimed several victims and no doubt did not help Schmidt when it was revealed she had lied about her connection to others implicated.

So it was a last-ditch 'Swiftboating' of Paul Hackett, echoed by Limbaugh and no doubt countless other conservative/GOP blowhards throughout the day, that Schmidt and her advisors had selected for their two-minute drill as the final days of the campaign closed out.

But Hackett, running a hard, tough-as-nails campaign, in which he openly called out the  Chickenhawk son-of-bitches who started the Iraq War, only fell four points short of beating Jean Schmidt in a district, the OH-2, which has predominantly voted Republican over the last three decades.  Now, it's not often when a loss is also a victory, but the terms of this election and the standard by which it would be measured were established a week ago when things tightened and reports indicated that Hackett was within five.  Suddenly, simply because this race was, indeed, a race'  a magnificent political squeeker in the midst of a scorching summer gripping the continent, was enough in a district where Republicans had clobbered their Democratic challengers by forty-plus points for as long as most could remember.

The Republicans will no doubt feign confidence and portray this as a resounding victory.  For GOPFirsters like Rush, who've crosswired their brains on dangerously addictive synthetic opiates, they will no doubt relapse and begin seeing visions of George W. Bush in potato chips and half-eaten burritos, prostrating themselves like the mindless fools who see the Virgin Mary on screendoors and proclaiming the resurrection of Bush's highly dubious political mandate.

They'll try to ride that three-pound hog for all its worth, but they know it won't even get them through August or do anything to avert the impending fight against John Roberts.  If anything, Dems and progressives and American liberals across the nation should feel a renewed sense of determination to oppose the Bush Administration in the wake of a week which saw a series of Bush victories, CAFTA's passage among them.

Republicans can try to spin this win as a 'win,' and they'll get their marching orders to be positive and exude confidence, and generally continue to annoy normal, mainstream American freaks with their Stepford-style, homogenized, cookie-cutter worldview, but behind the shallow smiles and darting eyes, they know that the results of the August 2 Special Election in the Ohio 2nd do not bode well for things to come.

Perhaps after U.S. Attorney Pat Fitzgerald wraps up his investigation, which could come any time between now and October, and possibly during Robert's confirmation hearing (which would be a nightmare for the White House), Karl Rove will have plenty of time to consider how it was possible for a man who called the President of the United States an SOB came so close to turning a solid GOP district blue.  And what would that mean for other districts where Republicans only have a slight to moderate advantage?  And what can it tell us about turnout in predominantly Democratic precincts?  Did more Democrats vote this time? Did Republicans jump ship?  Or just not show up?

Deep down, Karl knows that tomorrow morning every GOP legislator will wonder how much damage supporting the Bush Administration will do to them.  Frist has abandoned him on stem-cells, at least hinting that there is life after George W. Bush.  Hagel as been openly critical of the war for some time now, and at least three prominent GOP Senators believe that the President does, in fact, not have the power, nor the right, to do whatever he damn well pleases to prisoners of war, even during his own ambiguous, self-created conflict formerly known as the War on Terror.

Frist made a calculated move abandoning the President's position, and he, like many Republicans, understands all too well that come 2008 there will be no war to bouy their presidential aspirations.  If Bush had any claim to a mandate, it was to finish the mess he started.  But the former chearleader listens to his fatheaded Machiavelli too much.  Both are too drunk on power to notice the Sword of Damocles that hangs precariously above them.  And Bush is too dumb to realize that his legacy, if he is to have any (presently, he ranks somewhere among Hoover and Harding, and is quite possibly the epitome of both failed Republican presidents, having a remarkable knack for losing jobs and corruption), is intertwined with the fate of Iraq.  

If Frist is willing to risk the support of Christian extremists, it is an indication that the policies of the Bush Administration are so far right and out of touch with America, that continuing to kowtow to the Religious Right could have serious consequences in 2006 and 2008.

And the close win in OH-2 is a clear sign that the growing scandals and corruption which plague the GOP, from the White House to California to Texas to Ohio, have taken a toll on George W. Bush and the Republican Party.

It also shows that Democrats should run tough, offensive campaigns and gives enormous credibility to Howard Dean's 50-state strategy.  With another week or another day, it could have been a completely different story.  Regardless, Democrats have no reason to delay in re-establishing a truly national party, that takes its message to the most conservative parts of the country and all the way to the doorstep of traditionally Republican strongholds.

Passion and conviction work.  Paul Hackett proved as much.

And while Republicans might not yet be reading the writing on the wall, the narrow victory may prove to foretell much about the current mood and the direction the GOP is headed into 2006.  In the coming days, they will either downplay the importance of the race or trump up the essentially hollow victory, but both fail to explain the wound Paul Hackett left in the belly of the beast.

Knowing Bush is unlikely to move from the right, unencumbered by the possibility of running for re-election, Republicans might take one good look at OH-2 and decide that it might also be wise for them to 'frist' themselves from an administration fat with pride, hounded by scandals and tortured by brutal incompetence.

If I were a Congressional Republican, I'd get a good pair of running shoes and find out how far and fast I need to run from George W. Bush.  Or a good knife to cut loose from the corruption that is pulling the Party down, so it seems, state...by state....by state.