Republicans Defectors No Cause For Optimism

This weekend the Huffington Post ran a 'Breaking News' piece in which Arlen Specter asked the President to come clean on his role in the Valerie Plame leak scandal. Like most folks, I wanted to be excited about this news. Surely I'm not the only rat to leave the sinking Republican ship. Maybe cracks are finally starting to appear in the carefully crafted façade of Republicans being 'on message.' Maybe we're finally going to see some accountability!

Yeah...and maybe Tom Delay is a "good Christian man."

I was listening to Springer on the Radio this morning (it still strikes me as being so very wrong that his is the most moderate voice on the AM airwaves), and even Jerry was getting caught up in the optimism. Folks, not only is this not good news, it's likely part of a strategy. See, the 2006 election shouldn't just be a single-issue referendum--on the war in Iraq, or the forthcoming war with Iran, or congressional corruption. If we run solely on these issues, then we'll lose. Republicans have just enough plausible deniability to confuse these issues in the eyes of the voters. This election is bigger than that. I'm sure Frank Luntz has already polled enough voters to know that the big question the electorate has this year is "who's got my back?" And the answer has been "not the Republicans." This is why you see Democrats holding a double digit lead in voter preference before any official mid-term election framing has even begun.

The good news is the best theme we can run on actually encompasses all of the important issues of the day. Put simply, this election should be about checks and balances.

Here's the problem--Republicans know this. And so they're desperately trying to beat Dems to the punch. "You don't need another party in power," they'll say, "we're so mad at Bush, we'll do it for you!" This plays to the Republican's biggest strength in the 2006 election--throwing Bush under the bus.

But this blustery Republican bravado is just a paper tiger. Arlen's already proved this once. Remember his fiery rhetoric about wiretapping? Remember when he called Alberto Gonzales's rationale for the program's legality "strained and unrealistic"? And how the need for the administration to use FISA courts was "....really big, big, big..."? And how he wouldn't be timid about subpoenaing witnesses to get to the bottom of it?

How'd that work out? Well, I'd like to tell you, but the NSA is still monitoring my electronic transmissions. I don't think they have a warrant, and I don't want to wake up in Cuba.

I've said this before, but whenever Republicans get all up in Bush's grill this year we don't need to stand up and cheer. We need to get all Missouri on their ass. "You want to get tough with the Prez? Show me!"