Are the Dems using a Rope-a-dope strategy??

[Perky]

It occurs to me that one of the reasons the Feingold censure was DOA is that smarter politicians understand that the GOP base is pretty much back on its heels these days. (The GOP is very concerned about erosion, enimity and apathy among its core)

If you go after the President with a censure resolution, it is very liable to wake the beast by effectively allowing the GOP to sound political alarm cloack like "unpatriotic in a time of war to attack the Commender" or See the Dem are week on terror.. we must unite to keep them out of power or we will suffer another attack far worse than 9/11. From AL Quaeda or Iran or North Korrea?

Could it be that the Dems see the opportunity to take back COngress and don't want to screw that up by awakening the GOP base?


My take is that Bush would be far more screwed with a Dem Congress than he would with either a censure or an ill-fated Impeachment effort. WHich face it folks is not going to happen 6 and a half months before the mid-terms.

Noit saying the Feiglod was wrong... I supported the idea of censure soon afgter the wioretapping story brok.. I simply am suggesting a perfectly plausible reason why Frist wanted to push for an immediate vote and Dem Leadership cringed.

[MadHound]

1. Well, sadly, they're only using half that strategy

Mainly the "dope" part.

I'm sorry, but this is politics, and for the good of both the party and the country, you have got to hit the bastard hard when he is down. Instead, Congressional Dems are letting the man get back up, and are dusting him off. And frankly, they've hardly landed a blow in the past six years, mainly for lack of trying.

No, this isn't rope a dope strategy, just dope.

[patcox2]

2. Don't interrupt your opponent when he is punching himself in the face.

Its more like that.

When your opponent is making a fool of himself, don't interrupt, its an old saying amongst lawyers.

Bush is screwing up everything and his public support is evaporating. Attacking someone almost always brings out some sympathy and raises the support somewhat. Leave him to continue to demonstrate his own incompetence.

[Mythsaje]

3. I believe it comes from a quote

attributed to Napoleon. "Don't interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake."

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. not quite.

At least Ali was a poet.
If he were to describe the Democrats in the Senate and Congress,
"Hey, pass the dope,
my spine's a rope"
would be more accurate.

When 67% of the population is against the president, these idiots still fear their own shadow.
how stupid is that?

Doing nothing will result in the public losing faith on the ability of Dems to do anything. WE have already crossed that line a long time ago. Alito was a mere tack, a sewing needle, not a nail, in that coffin.

[Cocoa]

5. George Will just raised the specter of John Conyers

he scared the RW radio listeners with the thought of John Conyers, of Detroit, as head of the Judiciary Committee. :scared:

[EFerrari]

12. They get more blatantly racist every day.

We should be so lucky to have Mr. Conyers in that position.

[wisteria]

6. Thank You! Someone who has it figured out. We were laying low,

waiting to gain the best advantage-then attack. Thanks to Feingold, we look disorganized and we may have to settle for nothing more than a Bush apology.

[EFerrari]

11. Isn't that the strategy they told Al Gore to use? n/t

[depakid]

7. No, they're just rolling over and getting their asses kicked

.... and looking insincere and ineffectual in the process.

[Kagemusha]

8. Here's my take on it.

The Republican beast doesn't need to be roused. The Republican machine has maintained a constant state of anger since the Gingrich revolution. Hasn't been at the same volume, but it has been at a constant, Free Republic style intensity because the rage against liberals never wanes. However willingness to actually do something about it has waned with disillusionment with the President.

The beast isn't sleeping. It's been awake all this time, and now it WANTS to sleep, but no, its eyes are open, its ears taking in the blaring noise that's becoming a blur.

Democrats want to censure the President. Democrats want to help the enemy. Democrats want to commit treason. Democrats want to damage the country. Democrats.... etc. The base cannot be any more spiteful and hateful of Democrats and liberals than it already is. It's already in a permanent state of hardened emotion. If anything, they're tired of the constant going to war for God and Republicanism.

The only awakening the Democrats have to fear is minor awakening from the media and a storm of incoming calls and faxes and e-mails from lobbying machines built up over the last decade or two by the religious right and its allies. In other words, inconvenience. Because frankly, to people already convinced that just being a Democrat in and of itself makes you a likely traitor to the US, Feingold's "proving" it - where proof was already considered a foregone conclusion - can't possibly raise the outrage meter any more. It's maxed out. And maxed out, its effects are fading nonetheless.

[EFerrari]

15. They peeked when that nut Schmidt attacked Murtha.

That was November 18.

How many good days have they had since?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Well, you got the "dope" part right.

Worrying about what your opponent might do is a certain loser.

As Grant once said about his generals, he was ""almighty tired" of hearing about what Lee will do, and wants them to think about what they will do to Lee."

[mattclearing]

10. Yes, but thus far it has failed to yield dividends.

See 2002, 2004.

[Sammy Pepys]

13. I was thinking about this last night...

...and ultimately what happens in November 2006 will determine the effectiveness. Obviously, the Reps want to give the motion as much time as possible to fade from the public consciousness (even if it passed), that way it has negligible effect.

The flipside is this: waiting until after November is extremely risky,I think. If we don't win a majority, we look even more desperate. If we do and go for impeachment, it might be viewed as piling on and effect 2008 to some degree.

I like the censure motion, and I like going after it now (it gets things on record for 2006)...but it's increasingly evident to me that the Dems are lacking leadership and organization. The whole operation seems very scattershot lately....it doesn't seem like one hand knows what the other is doing. That 2006 is a bit of an unknown at this point compounds the problem.

[mattclearing]

14. Also, According to Zogby, Impeachment has 50% approval.

That's a debate we can win, if we choose to fight it.

[Shipwack]

16. Bah... even if this -was- a good tactic...

...It's a very bad strategy.

Attacking now not only hits Bush when he is weak, but shows people on both sides of the aisle that the Dems are strong.

True, -maybe- attacking now might wake his hardcore base, but we would be awakening them at a moment of -our- choosing, not when it is convenient for the right. I'd rather get them to expend their energy now, when it is an uphill battle for them, than later, when the Republicans mobilize them to add to a growing momentum they might manage to build up.

The Daily Show skewered this "no attack" philosophy earlier in the week, comparing it to laying on the ground and allowing a bum to repeatedly hit you with a bottle in the hopes that after you are bloodied and battered and unconscious, he might make a mistake....

[zalinda]

17. I want to remind everyone about the ports deal

What happened? The dems brought the measure to the fore ground and repubs took it and ran with it. It is now a repub win, in the eyes of the public. Since Bush's numbers are in the toilet, many repubs who want to distance themselves from him, will take this over too. See, we repubs are ethical, we censured our own, vote for us.

Better left alone, as much as we hate it.

zalinda

[ladjf]

18. No, just dope strategy.

[Imagevision]

19. From Iraq-Medicare-Katrina etc.. it seems like self destuction has begun

for GOP.