Who helped the Dems to victory in 2006? I'm sure Republicans are pondering that question.

[ProSense]

So much for the ‘permanent Republican majority’

This week, a Senate Republican aide said of the White House, “We just hope they leave without doing any more damage.”

If the aide was referring to damage to the Republican Party, it’s too late.

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THE MYTH OF THE PERMANENT MAJORITY....The Pew survey I linked to yesterday showed some pretty stunning reversals for the Republican Party, and I think it's worth taking a minute to deconstruct what the numbers show. The party ID catastrophe, in which Republicans have plummeted from a 43-43 tie in 2002 to a 50-35 deficit this year, obviously happened on George Bush's watch. He's the least liked president among moderates and young people in over a generation. But the survey also shows something more fundamental: a loss of sympathy for conservative positions, a trend that began well before George Bush ever set foot in the Oval Office.

In a nutshell, what I think happened is this: beginning in the early 90s the Republican Party hitched its wagon to two things: tax cuts and culture war politics. In the short term this worked nicely: people like low taxes and talk radio was pretty successful at keeping cultural conservatives in a constant state of inchoate outrage. George Bush and Karl Rove were this strategy's ultimate practitioners, and the attacks of 9/11, which they treated as a culture war issue, kept the GOP successful through the first part of this decade.

But in the long term this strategy has been a disaster. Even the wingiest of wingnuts understands that you can't keep cutting taxes forever, and after 2003 the tax cut jihad simply ran out of steam. There were no more taxes to cut. On the culture war side, as the Pew charts confirm, the problem is that America is getting slowly more culturally liberal as time goes by. Partly this is a generational thing and partly it's just a continuation of the same slow march of social tolerance that's been a hallmark of the past half century. Every year there's one or two percent more of the country that doesn't hate gays, doesn't want to ban abortion, and would just as soon see the Ten Commandments stay in church.

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The GOP isn't dead, and Democratic victories in future years are hardly assured. But there's not much question that Republicans are going to have to find a new schtick. The combination of Grover Norquist and James Dobson had its day, but that day is fading fast. If they want to stay relevant, they're going to need some new ideas.

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[skipos]

1. Yet Dame Rudy beats most Dems in most polls

and McCain does pretty well too, considering they are both warmongers.

2008 will not be cakewalk, especially if Hillary gets nominated, imo.

[diane in sf]

2. Few people like the Repugs positions,

hence the need for all their lying and Orwellian naming of their various programs, eg. Leave No Child Behind, Healthy Skies, Clean Water, Healthy Forests, whatever...

[hedgehog]

3. The "permanent Republican majority " has two faces.

On the surface, it's a matter of giving people what they want. Nothing wrong with that; that's the strategy that kept the Congress in Democratic hands for years.

The second face is far more sinister and dangerous. It includes using the following techniques:

- appoint partisan judges to life time positions

- control redistricting for both state and national offices

- scare black voters from the polls

- interfere with minority voting on election days

- use federal prosecutors to smear the reputations of Democratic office holders

- actively cheat on the vote count, tossing ballots clearly marked for the Democratic candidates

to ensure that Republicans always win the majority. We saw this in action in 2000 and in 2004, and no one knew what to do! In 2000 there was a judicial coup, and we're still being told "Get over it!" We ducked a mighty big bullet in 2006, but we're going to have to remain extra vigilante for 2008!

[ProSense]

4. "On the surface, it's a matter of giving people what they want."

Here's the problem with that: Repubs' promises to the majority are always based on lies. Repub voters are less likely to hold elected officials accountable for breaking promises on issues related to the common good. As a result, while "on the surface" they promise to give people what they want, it only helps to position them to carryout their "far more sinister and dangerous" agenda.

[hedgehog]

5. The worst part is that it's generally a promise to stick it to someone

else rather than do something for you!(ie, making Gay Marriage an issue).

[BeFree]

6. Who helped the Dems?

Why, it was the Underground.

How they do it?

By exposing the electronic voting machines.

There are just two reasons republicons are in power. One: they stole the 2000 election in Florida, and Two: the electronic - and untraceable - voting machines used in 2002 and 2004 which were bought by Tom Delay's HAVA, stole more than enough votes to capture a majority of seats.

In 2006, the HAVA gig was up and alarmed patriots from the Underground called the vote stealing bastards out causing the fix to be so small as to be defeated by another big turnout for Dem candidates.

You may even remember Tom Delay's boast shortly after HAVA was passed: "We will now crush the Democratic party."

Or you can believe that America asked and voted for republicon rule.

[Oceansaway]

7. .

aiding and hiding a known pervert(Foley)hurt them alot i think...

[L. Coyote]

8. Thanks to Diebold, DEMS take over Congress ???

To what extent are the DEM victories the result of improvements in voting technology?

At least in Ohio, this is probably the case to some extent, thanks to punch card voting being replaced by e-voting. Now, before you start a flaming, anti-electronic voting post, let me say I agree that e-voting is a danger to democracy. However, this question should be studied, and it would be simple to do in Ohio given that only some Ohio counties made the change after 2004, some before.

Do the reasons offered for the DEM victory obfuscate previous election fraud? I suspect so, at least in Ohio.