Scary Politics: “What happens if we lose?”

We survived Halloween. No October Surprises; No Gulf of Tonkin incidents manufactured to start another war in the Persian Gulf – yet.
Meanwhile, the political air here in America has been especially “thick.” I presently anticipate a significant defeat for Republicans in Congress. Like so many others who once thought themselves conservative, my political loyalties have been increasingly “independent.” Taken over by neoconservative transplants from the Democrats, today’s Republican leadership is as recognizable to me now as Dick Cheney is to Brent Scowcroft.
My favorite US Presidential pick for 2008 might still be Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) – though he disappointed me with his recent vote on on the detainee “treatment” bill – the one that tossed away Habeas Corpus. But this year here in Virginia, I’m more impressed with the major Democratic candidates.
One of my Jefferson Fellow colleagues, a sharp young English chap with a Ph.D. from Oxford, thinks quite the opposite – anticipating a November surprise wherein the Republicans will retain control of both Houses. He thinks the President’s “simple strategy” of painting the Democrats as “soft on terror” will remain the “brilliant” winning ticket.
Maybe I’m guilty of letting my hopes – for a return to a government of checks and balances, one that gives a hoot about the Constitution – get in the way of my analysis. Perhaps. We’ll see who gets humbled more next Tuesday; which one of us gets to feel like Charlie Brown trusting Lucy with the (political) football.
In my corner, I take some support from a Sunday essay written by a top former Republican Congressional Leader, Dick Army – of the “Contract with/on America” fame – which I think could be a first cut for his party’s obituary. Notice though that Army focuses on his party having strayed from first principles of smaller government. Little mention is made of it losing its way abroad – my most severe gripe with the party.
I chatted Tuesday with Mitch Van Yahres, a local Democrat icon in Charlottesville, the “conscience of the House” who recently retired from long service as a Virginia Delegate. Van Yahres shared my sense that a political ‘tsunami is in the works, even as he counted ways something might go awry.
Yet he stopped me in my tracks with a cheerfully presented, yet chilling Halloween thought:
“What happens if we lose? — What if the Republicans retain control of everything?”

Create your own list. (or add on in the discussion!) My nightmare goes something like this:

More unchecked, unconstitutional exercise of Presidential arrogance.
More blank checks for unilateral wars that get fake billing as coalitions (e.g., “coalition of the billing”);
More Presidential “signing statements,” the nonsense that makes a mockery of our Constitution;
Still bigger, uncontrolled deficits;
More secret prisons abroad;
More rendering of “detainees” to “friendly” 3rd country dictatorships for torture – which of course “we” don’t do. (wink, wink)
More wiretaps and computer tracking of US citizens, without court supervision.
More big brother, in league with big business and google.
More harrassment and pressure on scholars and dissidents who dare to speak out.
More Congressional refusals to hold hearings about executive branch misconduct….
More of what George Washington warned against: “permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others.”
More unprecedented “coat holding” for Israel, regardless….
More reasons for “them” to “hate us.”
More aggressive wars, with no resistance from Congress, the branch of Government that Jefferson thought would “check the dog of war.”

The difference between Iraq and Iran, after all, is just one letter.

Oh, and a change in the Supreme Court membership — and as such, “detainees” held by the US can kiss the world goodbye.
No more habeas corpus; the terrorists aren’t human, after all.
Less quibbling over which torture is ok;
No more fretting about compliance with Geneva conventions or international law;
No more silliness about having “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind….”

How un-American. (Irony alert! and with apologies to Jefferson)

We (Republicans) are the world, ain’t we? It’s OUR national interest that matters. Like Condi said in 2000, there’s no such thing as an international community. The world is either with us, or against us. We’re the world’s weathermen. We detect and destroy (mushroom) clouds before they even appear. We don’t cut ‘n run. We stay the course – until either we say we don’t or until after the elections.

For five long years, our President, “George III” (historic pun intended) has run a virtual dictatorship under cover of a a Rovian strategy of scaring the hell out of the American people.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I think Van Yahres has hit upon what may be a workable response theme:

Be even more afraid of more of the same.

Call it the PhTSD strategy (Post-Halloween Traumatic Stress Drama). Or how about a neo-FDR strategy: “The only thing we have to fear, is (the propogators of) fear itself.” Could be enough.
Yet I reminded Van Yahres of a theory I raised with him in a different setting a year ago – that for the Democrats to turn the tide that has been running strong against them for a quarter century, they had to do better at attracting the “middle” from the Republicans, on both foreign policy and social issues. Maybe they finally are, if for the wrong reason – growing anger.
Weed-Goode House Race
I raised a similar question at a splendid reception last month at Helena’s house for Al Weed, our democratic challenger here in central/south Virginia against Vuuuuurgil Gooooode – a good ole’ boy Democrat turned Republican, turned “whatever the President wants, I’ll support,” congressman. (Confession, I once voted for Goode in the past.)
Yet I now much prefer Weed. While he has picked a few important newspaper endorsements, I’ve been disappointed that Weed hasn’t gotten more tangible support, locally and nationally, despite Goode being linked to the MZM pentagon contractor scandal.
Goode should have been vulnerable over the scandal. But Weed’s campaign early on botched a TV ad on the scandal – and that may have made it even more difficult for him to attract serious outside Democratic financiing. Worse, Goode’s campaign ironically managed to turn a real liability into a positive, by running omnipresent TV ads focusing on Weed’s “dishonest” commercials – without mentioning the original scandal.
Weed’s original strategy to win the Virginia 5th District, if I understand him correctly, was three-fold, to get the democratic base around here energized and voting (which hasn’t happened in a long time), to get “angry independents” out in force to join him, and to get Republicans to be so disgusted with Bush and Goode’s associations with scandal, that they would just stay at home.
Weed, farmer, veteran, and the father of a son on his second tour in Iraq, candidly promises that if elected, he’ll work to cut off funding for the US occupation of Iraq – to force an earlier solution to the quagmire. Amen.
Maybe its just me, yet I fret about Weed’s posters and stickers that tout his “Democrat” credentials – in a red-meat section of the state where ordinarily candidates don’t emphasize their party affiliations. I hope I’m wrong, but I wondered how well that strategy will work in traditionalist southside Virginia, where despite an economy that has only “gone south” since (or rather with) NAFTA, voters might still be swayed by Virgil Goode’s emphasis on social issues and “family values” – which appears in the form of a state-wide ballot initiative to define a marriage as between a man and a woman.
Those energized to get out and vote in this district on the marriage issue most likely will be voting for Goode.
But It’s also possible that Weed might yet ride what he deems a national wave of discontent against Bush. He’ll need an especially big ‘tsunami.
Senate Race: Allen v. Webb
I have greater optimism about the State wide race here in Virginia for Senate, where Republican George F. Allen is in an unexpected dogfight with the ultimate un-candidate and former Reagan Secretary of the Navy, James Webb. The Christian Science Monitor here carries a helpful overview of the campaign and its major patterns. This indeed may be one of those cases where the Iraq war – and George Allen’s unflinching support for it, then until last week – may be a deciding factor.
Allen, once a widely touted Presidential contender for 2008 – to become George IV – has repeatedly shot himself in the foot, beginning with the Macaca incident, which hurt Allen among minority voters and recent immigrant citizens.
Allen’s own Jewish heritage also got discovered and/or revealed along the way. It didn’t help that Allen’s own account of the revelation – what he knew, when he knew, why he concealed it, or who he promised what to and when – kept changing. Consider the column by our local politics writer Bob Gibson. Hard to believe the moving story of his grandparents is really “recent” news to Allen.
Yet never mind what religious confession Allen does or doesn’t hold, Allen’s admission “at the point of a gun” raised more questions about the candor of the tobacco-chewing, aw shucks, gee whiz, Vuuuh-GIN-yah cowboy. Was he a California raised huckster after all? The Reagan teflon that Allen once wore so well has pitted a bit.
Allen’s attempts to tar Webb with “liberal, leftwingers” Hillary and Nancy (Pellosi) haven’t quite “stuck” either – er, at least not to me. Webb seems to be holding his own.
Realizing their candidates prospects were deteriorating from a “slam dunk” to a “dropped ball,” Allen’s campaign has turned hard to the social issues cards — including via accusations on the gay marriage issue and on anti-women and “pornographic” passages supposedly in some of Webb’s novels.
On the latter issue, the Democrats have had a two-word rejoinder – Lynne Cheney. (about similar racey lines in a novel the Vice President’s influential spouse once wrote – but now denies, or “not necessarily“…)
I’m just not sure how such mudd slinging and character assassination by either candidate will play. It may very well dampen Webb’s appeal among those traditional Virginia social conservatives and moderates. Or It might cause them such disgust as to “stay home.”
Stark Incident
Like the President, Allen’s handlers have been working extra hard to keep Allen away from unscripted gaffes or unflattering questions from the media. Whispers have been circulating about how ironic Allen’s championing of tradtional marriage is while he himself may have had a rather rocky, unconventional first one himself. Who knows? Allen’s first divorce court records are sealed – rather unusual I gather.
One ex Marine turned Virginia law student, Mike Stark, who emulates Michael Moore, tried to ask Allen about the divorce Tuesday evening and got gang-tackled by Allen operatives – an odd scene replayed on local and national Television. Watch the nasty, “stark” video “>here
It remains my hunch that there’s enough widespread frustration with Bush on foreign policy across Virginia that voters may just be willing to toss Allen back to California and instead trust a home-grown, if awkwardly modest, hero – one who also has a son serving in Iraq.
No “chicken-hawks” running among the Democrats around here – those “neocons” are in the other party. And as my son also happens to be an engineer officer in the Virginia Guard, it matters to me. As such, I’m voting “pro-life” – albeit rather selfishly I confess – for the politicians I think less likely to put him recklessly in harm’s way for causes that make us more, not fewer, enemies.
One seat-of-the-pants, highly unscientific observation: In the twelve years I’ve lived in southern Albemarle County (the county surrounds Charlottesville), I have almost never seen road signs or posters for democratic candidates. Ordinarily, Republican signs are everywhere. Back in the spring of 2003, I don’t recall any “say no to war” signs up either.
When I put up my own signs for Weed and Webb almost a month ago, I braced for the backlash. The signs were torn down, but only once. No matter. To my surprise, the Republican streets around here are now widely covered with the “blue” Webb signs. (unlike Al Weed’s signs, Jim Webb’s signs don’t reference his party.) For eight miles up route 20 to Charlottesville, I have only seen two signs for the Republicans, and one is a large Allen poster plastered to the endless fence one of wealthy landholder…. rather fitting symbol it now strikes me.
The Sage of Monticello?
Last thought, the Monitor story above has Allen citing Thomas Jefferson as his early America hero, and Webb citing Andrew (Trail of Tears) Jackson.. Horrors on both counts. If Allen was such a Jeffersonian, what would he think of Jefferson’s First Innaugural, where he declares:

[The] protection of the habeas corpus” – the right to petition courts about the legality of one’s detention – is among the most important “principles form[ing] the bright constellation which has… guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation

Jefferson is also on record affirming habeas corpus applied to both citizen and alien alike, and he argued against suspending it even in times of war or rebellion. In a 1788 letter to James Madison, Jefferson warned that the want of habeas corpus “will do evil…” and that suspensions thereof can become “habitual” and the “minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension.”
Allen, by contrast, defended the recent Detainee bill that tossed habeas corpus aside. Rather “cavalier” of him; but hardly Jeffersonian.
Or how does Allen see himself as a Jeffersonian when he opposed the recent visit of former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami to the University of Virginia and to Monticello? Allen bought into the neocon-written script claiming Khatami was responsible for every ill inside Iran, that he wasn’t a reformist, that he supported terror, that he had nothing of interest to say, etc.
Even if all these absurd accusations were true, square Allen’s position with Jefferson’s famous motto for the University of Virginia:
“Here we are not afraid to tolerate error so long as reason is free to combat it.”
Allen’s version of that motto would seem to be,
“Here we are not afraid to be intolerant, so long as it is politically expedient to do so.”