(Update) Denny Hastert’s GOP Seat Goes Democratic — Dems, Can You *Now* Grow a Pair?
(posted by Mona)
After former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert resigned his Illinois congressional seat in 2007 (a district that mainly encompasses Chicago a district west of Chicago), and thus set in motion a special election, John McCain campaigned for Republican Jim Oberweis who ran against Democrat Bill Foster.
Foster won Saturday, with his opposition to Bush’s war in Iraq being a centerpiece of his campaign.
So when, oh when, will the Democrats come to grips with the fact that opposing the modern GOP is not only safe, but what the elecorate wants? Why do the timid, frightened Democrats keep caving (brief ad click-through) into Bush on issues such as warrantless surveillance of citizens and telecom amnesty, when doing so is unnecessary?
What do they think the ‘06 election results meant? And now this Democratic upset in Hastert’s former seat?
As the astute Hilzoy notes:
Foster supports an end to the war, and opposes telecom immunity. This is a great pickup.
Stop the mewling, take the right stands, and militantly demand an end to foreign wars of choice and abrogation of civil liberties at home. Rove’s scare-mongering ain’t working anymore — internalize that, please.
*****
Update: Bush loyalist and real conservative A. J. Strata proclaims that this debacle is attributable to “true” conservative purists who stayed home:
And people wonder why ‘true conservatives’ are not considered reliable, credible or honorable political allies? So the purists will risk everything to get their way. OK - as long they are in the minority and without a voice at the table they can pretend that plan is working to their hearts content.
Oh, those dishonorable conservative curs. This election result has nothing to do with Strata’s man Bush. Nope. Nada. It’s the lazy right-wing defectors.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I wonder if they’d have enough guts to say No even if Bush’s numbers fell into the single digits.
The worst part of it is, they make up excuses for not doing it that are flat-out lies. For instance, the last time they renewed warrantless wiretapping Pelosi said they “had to” because they didn’t have a filibuster-proof majority. But all they had to do was refuse to bring it to the floor. The truth was, they were scared of looking “soft” on national security.
Of course, it doesn’t help that much of the electorate is so stupid as to simultaneously be antiwar, but still have doubts about the “toughness” of a candidate who takes a public antiwar position.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
You can see the craven cogs of their logic…”lets see, since everybody on the left is voting for us anyhow, if we tack to the center we maximize our number of votes!”
No, that is wrong. When you appear to cave to your opponent on everything, you make your position weak and you give the rhetorical high ground to your enemy. If you don’t have the spine to stand up for your convictions even people who would agree with you would have a hard time voting for you.
March 9th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
But if they grow a pair, then some people in the press may not regard them as serious. I mean, how can you regard somebody as serious when he wins a seat in the other party’s territory by talking about issues that the elites don’t want to talk about? That’s not serious, it’s crazy!
/sarcasm