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Edited on Wed Nov-03-10 06:26 AM by unc70
If both houses go to the Repubs in NC, they will control redistricting, massive budget cuts to deal with $3B deficit. all sorts of RW social activism. and God knows what else. If this happens, Bev must use her veto power and the threat of it as a bulwark to protect the citizens of our state, even those so ignorant and misinformed that they are ecstatic tonight at what they are bringing down upon themselves and the rest of us. Seemingly not aware of the consequences awaiting.
Much of what happened in NC today followed Rove's plan in states around the country: Federal prosecutors investigating Dem corruption (finding some and still investigating) and keeping Dem leaders on the defensive; accusations against illegal immigrants and that old reliable, welfare cheats (ie, blacks) -- not deserving of your taxes, stealing your jobs, and challenging American Exceptionalism (sorry, white only); false claims by the RW about raising taxes, welfare to illegals, Obama's birth certificate and his socialist agenda; the HCR mandate, scandals real and imagined; hammering away at that them incessantly over the last few years, overwhelming those few who attempted to correct the record backed up by facts.
The Wake County School Board should have been a big wakeup call for Dems everywhere in NC. But it wasn't.
With a few exceptions, not only did we fail to counter these attacks in ways we have proven can work, we often went out of our way to make it easier for the Repubs. We seemed determined to reinforce the negative perceptions they spread, to make stupid missteps in response to traps they set even if easily detected by many at DU, all while many of us at DU and throughout the country focused on distractions like the antics of a couple of Tea Party candidates who had no chance of winning their GE.
Summer of 2009 at the townhall meetings, we laughed at the disruptors who wanted to keep government out of MediCare, but failed to grasp that nearly every one of "them" was angry, frustrated, and fearful of essentially the same things that "we" were. Remember how some DUers ridiculed those who thought that HCR would require anyone buy private insurance. The laugh's on us, but it isn't funny.
We missed a great opportunity in several ways. Think what might have happened if we had provided even a Medicare-for-All option instead of the complicated gift to the insurance companies, loaded up with bad amendments by Repubs and some Dems that further alienate voters left, right, and middle. The individual mandate, slow rollout of most of HCR reforms, laced with loop holes, carrying Repub amendments/concessions making Dems look week, passed with no Repub votes, and with many Dems forced to support a bill they hated because they feared that not passing something would be worse for Dems and Obama than passing this sorry mess.
I think Dems were played by special interests and the Repubs looking ahead to this year and 2012. Once again they kept us divided against ourselves, where we ridicule and shout at each other rather than listening and learning how much we have in common. Think how different it might have been if we had been able to articulate a message in terms that resonated with DUers and with some of those we lumped in with the Tea Partiers.
Maybe using something like the populist approach of the Edwardses and focusing on the community responsibility to each other and reminding of moral and religious obligations using phrases like caring for the least among us. Might have connected with enough of them to make a difference. Might have passed a better bill; instead we did it the Chicago and DC way. Deals were made among all the parties dividing up the spoils. All parties that is except ordinary citizens.
The same pattern repeated time and again, while secret, overpriced, no bid contracts to Xe/Blackwater, et al continued to funnel billons of taxpayer dollars through Eric Prince to fund many RW causes. Why wasn't it stopped?
Why did our leaders not push a vote before the election on the bill that extends most of the Bush tax cuts and force the Repubs to choose between supporting the bill as presented (giving Dems a tax cut win), attempting to amend the bill, or voting against extending middle-class tax cuts unless the super rich get theirs and exposing what was really going on. Passing that very same bill after the election win by Repubs will be seen as the voters having finally forced the Dems to bow to the will of the people. The Repubs will probably try to use the election as a mandate to extend ALL the tax cuts.
What possible convoluted reasoning went into that decision to postpone a vote on that bill until after the election, at least in the House. Pelosi has talked all around this, bringing up that the Repubs would run negative ads either way, etc. What was there to lose by forcing the vote?
I see reasons that keeping the birthers marginalized in 2008 by Obama not releasing his hospital birth records, etc. Think of watch RW heads explode if he had released those records several months ago. It would have destroyed the credibility of many on the right who routinely raise doubts around this issue. Is he waiting to release them until impeachment hearings begin, or saving for 2012?
Some DC insiders even suggested that losing the US House now might make it easier for Obama to win in 2012. That does not qualify as a silver lining.
We let this happen. All of us, from Obama down to you and me, bear some of the responsibility. We can blame it on corporate money, Fox, the MSM bias, Rahm, the DLC, racism, etc., but they played only a small part. We failed at giving people a reason to vote, and we failed to mount the GOTV. We promised change; what most people saw was more of the same -- the rich get richer, the poor stay poor(er). That's the way it goes.
While liberal and progressive Dems will be scapegoats in some races, as always (e.g. Blanche Lincoln), I am afraid that our "leaders" failed to lead and even failed to follow the electorate.
While attacks on state government in NC were pervasive, nearly every Dem in NC was targeted in attack ads tying them to the socialist Obama agenda, with pictures of Pelosi and Reid.
Now the Repubs have the upper hand in controlling the future of NC for the next decade. How depressing.
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A NC History Footnote
If I remember, the Republicans last controlled both the NC House and Senate in 1896-1898 when a relative of mine was the "Republican" / Fusion Governor Russell. That was a REALLY different Republican Party, though with important aspects that echo in tonights results. In 1896 in NC, the Repubs benefited by high black turnout couple with a populist revolt among poorer whites against those candidates of either party who were closely tied to the railroads and the (mostly) Northern banks. Many of the Repubs elected that year were insurgents, often displacing more establishment candidates, some Repub, some Dems, and some from others. It was a messy election nationally and in NC.
The prospect that blacks, poor whites, and liberal do-gooders might displace the establishment control of state government brought a swift and powerful response from those who felt threatened. Until that time, NC had generally treated its black citizens better than most other states, North or South, before and after the Civil War. Though better, still not very good.
Free blacks in NC had in law and often in practice the same rights as whites until the 1830's when their right to vote or hold office was taken away. They still had the same rights to own property including slaves, freedom of movement, appear before court, enter contracts, and even habeas corpus. During this same period, free blacks were blocked by law from even moving to states like Indiana or Illinois and prevented from owning property in many others states (thus denying the vote to them). In many ways, it was slave vs free, but rather slave vs white-only states.
This threat to the rich and powerful, from the NY banks down to the local sheriff, was so great and their reaction so extreme that NC was essentially in rebellion (see Wilmington). The banks, railroads, and others, including newspapermen like Daniels at the N&O (who later publically apologized for his involvement), fanned the racial flames to keep powerless both blacks and poor whites for the next century.
NC now joined most other states north and south with laws implementing Jim Crowm and soon it was known for corruption, election fraud, and party bosses that rivaled those in NY, or anywhere else. After WWII, things finally began to change, but slowly.
The slogans, the fear tactics, the racism, the resentment of outsiders still resonates today with many much as it did in 1900. And not just among those whose families had been in NC long before the Civil War, not just those so often attacked here at DU. No, the fear tactics honed by Jesse Helms and others resonates with many recent to NC, from the North or Midwest or West.
Divide and control.
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