In Search of a Viable Second Party

Good advice for the Democrats is located here; from a military man, no less.

If you guys don’t like Bush’s [Supreme Court] nominees, here’s a suggestion: Win some elections.

I almost hope that the vast majority of Democrats heed the words; a multi-party system with at least two viable parties serves all of us better. Donnie (the author of the linked post) is certainly no conservative/Republican ideologue.

[I]t seems to me you’d be better served by acknowledging that you really need to brush up those national security credentials, and distance yourselves from your crazies. Lord knows the Republicans haven’t learned that lesson, so why don’t you beat them to the punch?

Alas, the following keeps reasonable men (and women) like him out of the Democrat camp.

[I]f it weren’t for the likes of Dean, Kerry, Kennedy, Leahy, Durbin, Harkin, Boxer, Conyers, McKinney, and Jackson-Lee, I’d be set to push the (D) button myself in ‘08. Every time I get close to committing, though, one of that crew lets loose a stupendously vitriolic and ultra-partisan barrage of verbal diarrhea, and I have to remind myself that these people will be driving policy if I do so.

It’s almost as if the Democrats are shooting themselves in their collective feet on purpose. Witness the Jack Abramoff scandal: Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist, gets indicted for influence peddling (more commonly known as bribery), among other crimes and pleads guilty. You’d think that this would be a boon for the Democrats. They should be able to seize the untainted high ground with little effort, even in spite of the fact that forty out of forty-five Democrat US senators—including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid--had accepted money from Abramoff. An effective Senate Minority Leader would have sent out one of the most strategically sound memos imaginable to all senate Democrats and would have cc’d House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for efficacy of her charges (bogus quote):

1) Tell the truth: if you’ve accepted money from Abramoff, take an equivalent amount from your coffers and contribute it to one of the most sympathetic charities imaginable, say a hurricane relief fund or the like.

2) If a journalist asks you about the funds you received from Abramoff, admit that you received the money but deny that you knew anything about any malfeasance. Then trumpet your act of charity to the mountaintops.

3) If Howard Dean opens his mouth, repudiate anything he says, even if it’s favorable to our situation. You never know with that guy and we know and the Republicans know that he’s a nutjob.

4) Tell the truth (it can't be emphasized too much).

But no.

I actually heard Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) tell an interviewer that no congressional Democrat had accepted money from Abramoff. You could have knocked Mr. Dingell’s interviewer over with a feather and here's why: just the day before I had heard on the same news program that numerous Congress persons from both branches of the legislature and from both parties were giving back (and keeping) Abramoff-stained monies. (The name Rep. Patrick Kennedy [D-RI] stood out in my mind.) It's almost as if the truth isn't in some of the Democrats even if the truth could be used to their advantage.

If you can botch taking advantage of an incredibly simple scandal which hurts your ideological adversaries and should benefit you, if you can manage to snatch defeat from an easy victory stemming from the crimes of those whom you despise, what good could you accomplish in battling a real enemy?

Donnie laments:

It sure would be nice to vote for somebody, rather than against someone else again.

As a hardcore Republican, I'm not that upset about it, but for the larger good of the Republic, the existence of a workable Democrat Party would only be in our favor.

(Thanks to Lucianne)

UPDATE: More here.