Not just a river in Egypt

November 10, 2005

Republicans clearly had a bad day on Tuesday, with key defeats nationwide. This is when GOP spin doctors, who can put a positive face on almost anything, prove their worth. Or not.

TNR’s Franklin Foer obtained a copy of the talking points distributed yesterday morning by the National Republican Congressional Committee. It was the usual palaver, but the first point was particularly entertaining.

Nothing changed. Tuesday’s results reflected voter preference for the status quo as well as the importance of local issues. No governorships changed hands; anti-incumbent redistricting initiatives were defeated in California and Ohio; incumbent mayors won in Atlanta, Boston, Houston, and New York.

In other words, when Democrats win in Virginia, New Jersey, Atlanta, Boston, and Houston, it’s proof that Republicans have nothing to worry about. Riiiight.

On a related note, the spin about Tim Kaine’s victory in Virginia has been particularly bizarre. Consider Scott McClellan’s take on the race during yesterday’s WH press briefing.

“[I]n Virginia…you had a candidate, Democratic candidate for governor who ran on a conservative platform, a platform that was very much out of line with the Democratic National Party.”

A week ago, the Republican line was Tim Kaine was an excessively liberal Dem with positions deeply at odds with Virginia’s values. This week, Tim Kaine is a conservative with positions deeply at odds with the DNC’s values.

Tuesday must really have been traumatic for the Republicans; usually their spin isn’t this ridiculous.

I’m hearing alot of that ‘Kaine isn’t a main stream Democarat’ stuff this moning. Marshall Whitman (sp), God love him, was on this morning about how the Village Voice is claiming Kaine as a DLC victory.

This is just ridiculous!!! I don’t think Marshall hardly mentioned Kaine during the campaign. Ed Kilgore has posted frequently about Kaine, but maybe that was just to distance himself from his namesake 😉

No, it has been Kos, MyDD, Taegan, and of course yourself that have been waving the flag for Tim Kaine.

DLC victory indeed!

  • It’s supposed to be an admirable thing to see the half-empty glass as half-full. But RepubCo has the impressive ability to project an almost empty glass as overflowing with abundance. It may be psychotic on their part but that willingness to catapult the B.S. with a straight face is part of why they’re such a persistant pain in the ass.

    I wouldn’t cotton to the left playing the same shell game with the truth but it shouldn’t be overlooked as to how effective sticking to a message can be. They’re way farther down the road than they have any right to be.

  • “Nothing changed.”

    That’s great news actually.

    If you think it ain’t broke, you won’t fix it.

    So let’s hope they really believe it.

  • When your record on matters of substance is a string of disasters, you are left with spin. Granted, the GOP are masters of spinning, (or, as we used to call it back in less enlightened times, lying) but eventually there’s no substitute for getting things right. They desperately need to win the war they started and they need to actually make most people’s lives better. Anything else just looks like shysterism.

  • Shysterism!

    Would that be the equivilant of Fundamentalism for the less “enlightened” members of the cult? It certainly has it’s own devoted group of preachers and followers.

    Shysterites?

  • I think they have a good point. Take the example of the governor seats, we didn’t win any we didn’t already have. That’s breaking even. Definitely a loss for Republicans, but not anything to be particularly excited about for us.

    when Democrats win in Virginia, New Jersey, Atlanta, Boston, and Houston, it’s proof that Republicans have nothing to worry about

    Except maybe Houston, I don’t see any of those areas as being competitive. Atlanta, Boston New Jersey are probably owned by Democrats, and Virginia had a Democratic governor before the election. But I know very little about them in particular. What I’m saying is winning non-competitive races does not indicate anything about the competitiveness of the GOP elsewhere. Now, if we won Utah, Nebraska, etc, that would definitely be news. Houston could be news, though. I don’t know. The only news here seems to be that the GOP isn’t strong enough to take the Democratic strongholds in the northeast, California (we defeated all of Arnold’s measures) and urban areas.

    The results of this election may be the first sign that the GOP is unpopular with Americans, but it seems more like reading tea leaves to me. When we start taking their seats, then I’ll be cheering.

    Feel free to tell me why I’m wrong.

  • I think several events finally broke through to the tv-addled brains of the typical (and suburban) voter. Cindy Sheehan made a fool out of vacationing Shrub, bringing attention to his IraqNam Quagmire. Katrina, as Marvin Kalb wrote in the International Herald Trib, blew the teflon off the President and his presumably “capable” handlers. TV anchors like Anderson Cooper finally got to see for themselves, and felt moved to rant about, the consequences of Bush’s incompetence from the miserable up-close scenes in New Orleans and Mississippi. TV could get its teensy sensors to focus, for a moment anyway, on the 2000th US death in Iraq. The Harriet Miers fiasco made hilarious TV fill from beginning to end. Finally, Fitzgerald’s indictment of Libby was as solid as any Perry Mason episode.

    Getting through on TV is more important than anything else. As a late friend said when I was trying to explain something just a tad complex, “C’mon, Ed, ya gotta put the hay down on the ground where the goats can get at it!” Cindy Sheehan, Paul Hackett, Harry Reid … they seem to have a knack for doing that. Beyond them, just let nature and typical Republican incompetence/hubris take their course and enjoy the results.

  • Hi Rian,

    At least about Virginia, you are wrong. Kilgore and the anti-Tax Republicans (Norquist etc.) were sure they could win back the Governship of red state, voted for Bush in 2004, Virginia.

    That they did not represents a failure of both policy and tactics, and is a SIGNIFICANT win for the Democrats.

    Huzah! Warner! Huzah! Kaine! Huzah! Old Virginia!

  • Ithink the fnhere is that the Repugs are on not on the offensive anymore; “the status quo didn’t change” is somehow defined as a success!

    I agree that they’re not objectively on the defensive– yet. But we have to do that. It means kicking ass in 2006. Seeing their march across the USA suddenly slow to a stop– and hearing them be satisfied with that– is excellent, excellent news.

    Our goal should be to continue to attack, attack, attack, and stay on the offensive. The ultimate net objective measure of that will be picking up seats.

    • Comments are closed.