Republicans See Storm Clouds Gathering

[SHRED]

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What a mess they are, and are leaving behind.

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Republicans See Storm Clouds Gathering
Week of Bad News Highlights Difficult Challenges for GOP in Fall Elections

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 16, 2008; A05

While all eyes were on the presidential campaign and the demise of New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D) last week, Republicans on Capitol Hill were suffering a run of bad news that could hold dire implications for the campaign season.

It started with the loss last weekend of the seat held for two decades by former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). It got worse when Republicans lost potentially strong challengers to Democratic senators in South Dakota and New Jersey, and failed to field anyone to oppose the reelection bid of Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.).

The latest blow came with the revelation that the former treasurer of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) had allegedly diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and possibly as much as $1 million -- from the organization's depleted coffers to his own bank accounts.

If Republicans needed any more evidence of how difficult this fall may be, the past week had it all, analysts said. The Illinois race demonstrated new levels of disaffection, the party's efforts to go on offense elsewhere were thwarted by recruiting failures, and the NRCC scandal will divert campaign resources and could frighten off badly needed contributors, they said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/15/AR2008031502047.html?nav=rss_politics

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[bluestateguy]

1. If we don't win the White House and Congress then we don't deserve to win

I can legitimately see why Bush won and Kerry lost in 2004 (and he did lose in 2004, folks). Kerry could have won, but Bush used every advantage he had for maximum effect.

But everything that was bad in 2004 is now worse and a Democratic victory depends on a "soft landing" from this primary season. That means a clear perception that one candidate won the nomination fair and square, without cheating. The loser wholeheartedly, without hesitation or delay endorses the nominee, and does some campaigning with him or her. It also means that the nominee immediate;y works to mend fences with the voters who voted for Obama and Clinton. Clinton will need to win back black voters and young people. Obama needs working class whites and Hispanics.

[patrice]

2. Bush's Private War and the Mortgate crisis have cut the ground out from under everything

that they assumed would support backlash against Democrats' "negatives". For everyone escept a very small group of contrarian CRAZIES to whom NOTHING matters, the cat's out of the bag for how they've been lying and what a bunch of hypocrits they are.

Everyone knows "Pro-Life" IS A LIE and we are WAR SLAVES.