With Bush’s faltering poll numbers, Democrats see the 2006 midterm elections as a chance to regain power. They hope to capitalize on recent scandals in the GOP by focusing their campaigns on ending the “culture of corruption.” And they’re also planning to wheel out a contract with America.
Sounds familiar, huh? Perhaps what goes around really does come around.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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23 Comments
As for a contract with America, that is about as original as “Employee discounts savings”.
If the Democratic party wants to win the Presidentcy and the top offices it is simple. Put someone up that can be voted for! Not someone from the far extent of either side of the party. Someone that has actually thought about what to do and say what he can do. Not what he thinks some want to hear.
Put abortion on the back burner, it has become like arguing over the color of a dead horse. It is settled law and for now is a necessary evil. As such it is a blinding force that has distracted from the real issues.
The time is ripe for one party to form a moderate party. If it is not the Democrats or Republicans. Then it will be formed on it only.Leaving the party that does not standing in the dust of their own shortsightness.
Put America first, it is not about Israel or any other countries. Take care of America first and the rest will follow. Return to fees on imported goods, NAFTA and GAT or GRAFTA as I call it. Was for the benefit of a few corperations not the country as a whole. It has allowed us to buy cheaper goods at the cost of good jobs and good pay.Yes you can shop at Wal-mart and get goods at a reasonable price. But because of the down turn in wages you have no choice. And even though you have a reasonable price. You are not better off because your wages have also lowered.
Democrats don’t need originality. They need to get back on the donkey that brung ‘em: fair prices for farmers, living wage for workers, middle class tax cuts (not tax SHIFTS like under BushCo.), eliminate deficit spending and reduce the national debt by raising taxes on the rich to historically normal levels, get the troops out of Iraq NOW, and rebuild America, not the Middle East.
Ditto to repealing GRAFTA, RDL.
I think there is too many congressman and senators from one family. Let’s vote this family out of their cushy jobs. Oh, the family name is Incumbent.
LOL! The Democrats don’t have a chance. They will probably lose seats.
Their version of Contract of America will never come out, because Democrats have no ideas or plans. They just follow the same format and bash Bush.
As if on cue, Joe Williams the broken record spouts all the available conventional wisdom.
A year is indeed a long time. But at the moment it is undeniably the GOP who is running scared, and for good reason, judging by the polls.
Well, I must admit the republicans have a plan. Destroy the economy and start WW III. But that meets the needs of the GOP. Give their supporters something or someone to hate, and keep them crapping their pants in fear.
XXX! Is the economy destoryed? Please provide proof of this.
Y’know, all this wrangle brings to mind an old civil rights movement tactic. When all the pols are corrupt, always vote against the incumbant! Keep the waters churning until something good floats to the top.
Joe,Drive down to your usual service station. You’ll find your proof on the sign.
Jed? You mean people sill filling up on gas and buying soda and donuts?
Joe, I don’t recall saying the economy was destroyed (yet). I didn’t say we were fighting WW III, either (yet). Re-read the post.
But we’re headed that way. Record federal budget deficits, the trade deficit, jobs headed overseas, Real-wage stagnation, do I need to go on? Jobs are just now getting back to where they were 5 years ago (or when Clinton was president). Time to face the facts, Joe. This president is a failure, and the more we watch, the crazier he gets.
Oh, and Joe, I don’t eat donuts and I don’t drink soda, I just fill up at the pump.
Hey JOE? I listen to Rush and Hannity to. So I seetheir words in your posts.
Uh JOE? 5 years ago I had a good union job making20 bucks an hour. The very DAY your boy king stole in, Management got froggy. The very perceptible attitude was “Hey, you’re just a worker! You’re expendable! Now the reason I get to listen to Rush and Hannity is ’cause folks like you got folks like me outta work.
But that’s just MY personal observations on the destroyed economy that YOU claimis not destroyed.
JOE? Bush made China a most favored nation trading partner. (I guess that little episode with them shooting down our surveillance aircraft didn’t weigh too heavy on his mind when his corporate buddies stood to gain so much from outsourcing jobs to a foreign slave labor work force) Since then our trade deficit and owed debt to the China has increased EXPONENTIALLY and no end in sight.
Hey Joe? There’s a big clock somewhere that shows the national debt. Now before bushie got in that clock was clicking DOWN. Since the ascendance of your boy king, it is clicking faster and faster into the red. And the aforementioned China is just one owner of that debt. Another god and trusted “friend” of the United States, SAUDI ARABIA also has a pretty big hold on the national mortgage.
Oh I could go on Joe. But why bother? Further posts of yours over these blogs reveal you for what you are. The economy is GREAT for YOU. Now it aint great for you because you are wealthy. It’s great for you because you curry favor……and God knows what else…..with those who are wealthy.
Ya’ see Joe when we speak of the national economy, we aint talking about how it is for the super rich or their little toadies like you. National economy means EVERYONE. Guy? Where I sit the national economy is dismal and getting worse. But of course you being a conservative, (and being told what to think by Rush Limbaugh) you don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone but yourself. Keep selling that! Please!
By all means JOE enjoy the fruits of your labor on bended knee. I know what it takes to be you and I aint got it. A little thing called dignity gets in the way. But Joe? When folks do wake up to what has been done to them in the name of the greed of the few; I’d not like to be you.
Well said, JR. Thank you.
Joe is just showing us the true meaning of compassionate conservativism. Fancy name for greed.
Folks like JR (union) want to see everybody advance. People like Joe want to advance by climbing over your body.
JR and Galahad have seen the joys of good paying union jobs with great benefits.
Those jobs are disappearing as companies send more work where it is done for lower wages, which is just about everywhere else.
So even while the unemployment rate is about as low as it can get (not counting a huge number of illegals, of course), the available jobs don’t look as good because the high-value-added factory work is leaving the country.
Meanwhile, some major European companies are relocating plants and research facilities to our country because of draconian EU anticompetitive rules.
Jobs keep moving to where the costs are lower.
We are told that we need to keep ourselves flexible by continually improving and broadening our skills. Easy to say. But, how do trained machinists, suddenly displaced by outsourcing to China, or by a high-speed, automated machining center, transform themselves overnight into some other well-paid line of work?
Disruptive technologies have always been a threat. Nobody makes typewriters at the Olivetti plant, anymore. And it’s the same thing (computer technology) that displaces many machinists today.
But two of the biggest strains on jobs today are outsourcing and open borders. Until national policy addresses and contains both those problems, our workers are in for more bad years.
The disruptions are painful. And the people hurt most by it are well-aware that the company leaders who sent their jobs overseas get big bonuses for doing it. That is dangerous policy – or lack of it.
Some additional constraints are needed to minimize the human costs of rapid disruptions caused by the escalating discoveries of new ways and places to exploit cheap foreign labor.
Currently, about the only effective constraints are the capacity of communication and transportation networks. In any case, that’s where the steadiest jobs should be if everybody and everything is networked around the world.
Another focus needs to be on unionizing foreign laborers. Good luck in China, though.
The anger and pessimism that you see by reading post like XXX, JR, and Galahad, you would think they were laid off Boeing workers.
I know the USA is not in the best position economically. You do have a point about outsource labor, national debt, everybody elses carrying their own debt, wage stagnation, and high energy cost. Yes, Bush is a sucky President.
But the difference between me and you (leftist) is our attitude. I”m aware we have problems but I look at the future with optimism and hope. I know tomorrow is a better day, and good things will happen. I believe in hard work and earning your keep.
You (The leftist) insist that the Government plan your life, that you are entitled to what you want, and you have an attitude of defeat and pessimism. Honestly it is quite sad to see people in this state.
About China and the rest of the world, they have every right to better themselves and to do what is necessary, under legal means and international law and commerce to get there. Good for them that they make practically everything and we buy it. They are better and cheaper than us in that area.
I want to point out mistakes in JR. It was Clinton that made PTR for China, and it was Clinton that made NAFTA possible.
Also! People like me are not the reason you lost your union job. It was yourself. Companies keep skilled, knowledgable, and producable employees. You were obviously not one, so they let you go. Not because of Republicans, Bush, or people like me (I’m just an average blue collar person), it was you.
You probably got your union job from a family member, you are probably a high school drop out, you probably hit the bars every night, and you are probably a pack a day smoker. What marketable skills or knowledge do you possess that makes you entitled to a job?
People like me move with the cheese and we do it with optimism. I used to work for a union and I saw the vast majority of people who held those jobs and were not impressed by their character, work ethic, or skills.
And for the record, I never claim to be a conservative or Bush lover. Because I am not. I never voted for Bush nor am I a conservative, and I don’t listen or watch Hannity.
The only thing I can say is good luck to you guys. I wish you the best, sincerally I do, but I don’t give out my shoulder for people to cry on and I don’t hand out what little money I have to panhandlers.
One last piece of advice I want to give to you (the leftist). Don’t wait for a miracle and don’t wait for that President and government you been hoping and waiting for to give you everything, because both are never going to happen.
Dream on, Joe. Thank God the rest of this country doesn’t think like Kansas.
Hate to blow your threory Joe, but I’ve never worked in aircraft. Fact is, I’m in mid-level management, I make more than most of the posters on this blog, and I don’t have a college degree. I did pretty much what you seem to endorse…I worked hard, applied myself, mastered valuable skill sets, moved to higher-paying jobs, and moved to where the jobs were. But Joe, I never forgot my roots, and I never forgot where I came from. My roots and my sympathies lie with people like Sir G, Janna, JR, Damoon, Jed, CF, Sum1, Steven, Brian and the rest of the thinking, feeling” Liberals on these pages (appoligies to anybody I left out). Joe, you have no roots, no anchor, no soul. You claim not to be a conservative, but you just wet all over yourself at the mere thought of a liberal. You think anybody who falls on hard times is at fault for their predicament. You have no sympathy. Joe, have you ever read the story in the Bible about the Good Samaritan?
See Joe, that’s the difference between you and the rest of us. We offer our hand to help eachother…you have only the back of your hand to offer to those less fortunate than yourself. Your philosophy is “I got mine, the hell with everybody else”.Well, I got mine, too. I also have a responsibility to see that others get theirs. It’s the human thing to do….It’s the Christian thing to do. Joe, you should try helping your fellow man sometimes….it’s good for the soul.
Snidely = XXX excuse the confusion
Snidley? What makes you think that I do not help my fellow man? And just because I do not subscribe to the Leftist ideology makes me a person with no roots and a soul? Since when did Liberalism become a religion?
I help a person out! I’m more compassionate than these hate spitting and name calling leftist on this blog. But I did read something about “give a man a fish and you fed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and you will have fed him for a lifetime”
I’m like a father figure Snidley, I step my foot down and say “NO” when the child gets spoiled. I don’t believe in leftist ideology, because I believe it is the wrong way to deal with our pluralistic society. Give aways, stealing from the rich, and class envy is making our society into a bunch of spoiled crybabies. And it is sad, while the rest of the world, such as China will surpass us economically, because they are working for a better tomorrow, not for what can I get from the government and rich people today.
Wow, Andy, that was very good analysis.
I’m seeing you with new eyes.
“Companies keep skilled, knowledgable, and producable employees. You were obviously not one, so they let you go.”
See, this is that “the free market is God” thing that you libertarian folks got going on. It’s also “blaming the victim” which you folks are good at too–see Katrina and aftermath.
It’s been my experience that management doesn’t have a clue about who is the most valuable. They generally keep the people who are most like them and fire people who have different ideas–whether they’re good or bad ideas.
Actually, management isn’t too fond of IDEAS and the people who have them, period.
How was a slave in the Old South supposed to work his way out of slavery? Answer: he couldn’t because society had set it up that way.
The vast majority of people today are wage-slaves. The illusion of opportunity is there. But the reality is that there’s only room for a relative few to achieve real success.
It’s like Mike Tyson. He fought his way out of the ghetto by talent, hard work, guts, and luck. But what if everyone were as good and as hard working and as lucky as Mike Tyson?
Then you’d have to be Mohammad Ali to get anywhere.
That’s the problem with your rosy scenario, Joe. The fact that a few succeed does not show that everyone can succeed. The fact that only a few succeed shows that under the present conditions in society, only a few can EVER succeed.
If the free-market is so wonderful, how do you explain that a farmer can make 1000 times more income producing opium, a harmful drug, than he can selling wheat, a beneficial food?
Why does an investment banker make a million dollars a day buying and selling an abstraction like “futures” while an honest car mechanic won’t even make a million dollars in two lifetimes?
It’s not because of the “unseen hand of the marketplace”–some mysterious, inevitable force of nature. It’s because society has organized itself in a certain way.
And this organization can be changed–just like the American radicals changed the feudal monarchy they were mired in and subject to in 1776.
Um Joe? You got off lucky. I was into a real long winded post that would have embarrassed the hell outta you and I got knocked off.
Now in that long winded post now lost I gave Kudos to Andy. Word to Joe, listen to Andy not Rush.
Abbreviated as this recompense of my lost post is, I want you JOE to go to Jib Jab.com. When you get there click on the video “Big Box mart” That’s your future Joe.