As I asked elsewhere:

GOP:

(A) Party of Limbo? (How low can you go?)

Or

(B) Party of Hell?  (Just watch!)

Make sure people know the Republicans are in the majority.

Remember, Dems, you have to also make sure folks know what you stand for, and you need to fire up the base, not all of whom are willing to bother voting for one of the corporate dems perceived (many times accurately) to not stand for anything but willing to say or do what they are expected in order to get elected.

Remember, Newt had his contract, it was an intriguing proposition for the so-called "moderate" voter, and above all, it fired up the GOP base.

Any bets on whether the Dems are capable of same?

If you play "not GOP" to get elected, you lose.

Turn-out can still hurt the Dems.  I heard that the Repubs have a vote on gays adopting children slated for 16 states--that will turn out the Repub-no-matter-what vote.  

At least, the media storyline that Bush was going to turn it around in 2006 after his bad year of 2005 is being discredited.  It is nice when actual facts castrate their fantasies.

The Dem senators are taking just the right position on this for a change. NO FOREIGN CONTROL OF US PORTS!  Outsourcing our ports is not only a betrayal of our safety and security, it is a betrayal of the American worker that we can't manage our own ports. The American people are with us on this.

I'll believe it when I see on election night the headline: "Americans Reject GOP by Removing 73 Congressmen From Office".

Frankly, I find thise highly optimistic predictions about how the GOP will lose in landslide margins in 2006 to be rather ridiculous at this point. Not only do we have 9 months to go before the elections, we seem to forget about other factors such as Diebold, gerrymandering (HUGE), hate amendments which bring out the radical lunatic fringe, low turnout on the left, and the complete indiference of Americans toward politics. I think we will win seats, I'm not convinced we will get a majority at this point. I had been wayyyy optimistic in 2002 and 2004--years that the CW was that they would be Dem years, I mean come on...how could that bumbling idiot actually win re-election? We were all convinced Kerry would win and that we would win Senate seats in OK, AK, FL, and NC...oh but guess what...we lost them all. So I don't care if the poll says 99% of Americans disaprove of W or that only 3% aprove of Congress, until I see results from Democrats, I will not cease to be pessimistic about their chances in every sinlge election.

I've written about this before here, I think but - Cliff Notes: it's a terrible analogy.

2006 Dems have suffered nowhere as much as 1994 GOP; haven't had an effective guerilla war going in Congress; don't have insurgent Congressional leadership like Gingrich; have too much to lose (they think!) to risk radical measures; have a majority mindset. Etc, etc.

I'm thinking less 1994, more 1946: a majority party collapse, a time for a change campaign, two fairly fruitless years of divided government, and dumped back on the street after one Congress.

(And, who knows?, a Conservative Coalition II, with Landrieu and the Nelson Brothers and their House counterparts going off the reservation in the cause of bipartisanship.

I certainly can't think of any bill the Dems might put forward in a Dem-controlled 110th a veto of which they could get overridden (as the GOP did for Taft-Hartley in 1947).)

A thought: 1994 Gingrich against 2006 Pelosi. I'd dump the analogy, frankly...

...now we need the second half of the equation: voters need to see Dems as the solution to the problem.

I'm not saying that they're NOT the solution.  I'm saying that, in 1994, voters heard the GOP promising that things would be better under them, and laying out concrete steps they'd take to do that.

So, we need to make sure voters get the message that voting for Democrats is a solid, concrete step towards improving things in their lives.  Otherwise, the GOP will do what it did in 2004: sell voters on the idea that the devil they know is better than the one they don't.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I already got a present I've been waiting for since...forEVAH.

And that is Bush's numbers.  Finally down to 34 percent.  I say, about time.

No, I'm not going to tell you how old I am.  But I will share with you that every single one of my childhood tormentors/abusers are now either DEAD or in insititutions for the criminally insane, or prison.

He who laughs last, laughs best.

The days of the Republican fascist swine are numbered.  I can feel the earth moving beneath my feet.

John Palcewski
http://www.palcewski.com/JP

We get to start the media meme that the Republicans are in "disarray"!!

Yeah!  Just like the job done on the Dems from 1994 to 2004.