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In an election cycle that promises to deliver a stinging rebuke to the GOP for its disastrous policies, increasingly desperate Republicans are resorting to truly disgusting and disgraceful means of keeping their claws on the levers of power at any price.

This is what Bush and Cheney had to say yesterday:

“However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses. That’s what’s at stake in this election. The Democrat goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq.”

Bush is not content to share power with Democrats, no–who are, after all, red-blooded Americans just like him. Any victory whatsoever by the Dems, any loss of absolute power in Washington by the Republicans, means nothing less than the ignominious defeat of America and a complete victory for terrorists. He makes this statement in the same breath as claiming the GOP wants to win in Iraq, while failing to explain how he intends to do that and while avoiding the NIE statement that the war is actually worsening terrorism.

Bush and Cheney are not alone in their vile rhetoric. In Tennessee, Republicans recently aired two racially tinged commercials against Harold Ford (who is black in a deeply conservative state): a universally condemned one in which a white female stripper asks Ford to call him (evoking interracial sex anxieties for voters) and a radio ad that beats jungle drums whenever Ford is discussed. In Virginia, George Allen slammed Jim Webb over fictional novels Webb had written describing hellish life in Vietnam during that conflict. And, of course, there’s always gay marriage.

These are your leaders, America–schoolyard bullies who show their true colors and throw a tantrum when threatened with losing their disastrous hold on power. It’s time to give them the butt-kicking that all good bullies deserve.

For far too long the Democratic Party had ceded wide swaths of the West and South to Republicans, forcing the party into a corner by relying on the coasts and the NorthEast. As the last six years have shown, this is not a workable strategy, and it is sensibly being abandoned.

People everywhere from coast to coast are ready for a new direction, and Democrats are doing battle on every battle front without fear.

Ohio has become a huge clusterfuck for Republicans, with the RNC pulling out all funding in the DeWine Senate race and effectively ceding the race to Sharrod Brown. Dems have a good chance of gaining up to four Congressional seats in this state alone.

In Wyoming, Republican Cubin still leads but has stumbled badly after she lost her composure and told her Libertarian opponent after a debate that she would slap his face if he weren’t in a wheelchair.

In Idaho, a state so red that Democrats are usually nothing more than sacrificial lambs, Democrat Larry Grant is running strong against Republican state rep. Bill Sali, forcing the RNC to spend $375,000 in Idaho’s District 1. Dick Cheney is also spending time here, as the Republican establishment is increasingly forced to play defense from coast to coast.
Right next door in Washington’s 5th and 8th Congressional Districts, Republican incumbents are running scared against strong Democratic challengers Peter Goldmark and Darcy Burner.

In Montana, another hardcore red state, Democrat Jon Tester leads in his Senate race against incumbent Conrad Burns, who has been burned on numerous occasions by his crass comments–including chewing out firefighters combating forest fires in Montana as “do-nothings.”

In New Hampshire, where Republican Charles Bass defeated Democratic challenger Paul Hodes by 20 points in 2004, now trails the same challenger by nine points.

Rural voters in general have tilted precipitously towards Democrats and away from Republicans, 52% to 39%. The Dems MUST target the rural vote like no tomorrow and not cede an inch of them to the GOP.

Democrats are out there in every state, in urban cities and rural villages, fighting mano a mano with brass knuckles for every vote against a GOP machine that continues to crumble. That is as it should be–the Democrats need to fight to be a national party again. If they win big in November they must never again forget the pain of being out of power so long, a pain mostly self-inflicted by a near-sighted “two coast” strategy that let Republicans ill-define them.

Cracks in the Facade has a good write up that summarizes a couple of recent newspaper articles about how Republicans on the run are lashing out desperately to avoid ignominious defeat:

· In New York, the NRCC ran an ad accusing Democratic House candidate Michael A. Arcuri, a district attorney, of using taxpayer dollars for phone sex. “Hi, sexy,” a dancing woman purrs. “You’ve reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line.” It turns out that one of Arcuri’s aides had tried to call the state Division of Criminal Justice, which had a number that was almost identical to a porn line. The misdial cost taxpayers $1.25.

· In Ohio, GOP gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell, trailing by more than 20 points in polls, has accused front-running Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland of protecting a former aide who was convicted in 1994 on a misdemeanor indecency charge. Blackwell’s campaign is also warning voters through suggestive “push polls” that Strickland failed to support a resolution condemning sex between adults and children. Strickland, a psychiatrist, objected to a line suggesting that sexually abused children could not have healthy relationships when they grew up.

· The Republican Party of Wisconsin distributed a mailing linking Democratic House candidate Steve Kagen to a convicted serial killer and child rapist. The supposed connection: The “bloodthirsty” attorney for the killer had also done legal work for Kagen.

· In two dozen congressional districts, a political action committee supported by a white Indianapolis businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, is running ads saying Democrats want to abort black babies. A voice says, “If you make a little mistake with one of your hos, you’ll want to dispose of that problem tout de suite, no questions asked.”

· In the most controversial recent ad, the Republican National Committee slammed Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) for attending a Playboy-sponsored Super Bowl party. In the ad, a scantily clad white actress winks as she reminisces about good times with Ford, who is black. That ad has been pulled, but the RNC has a new one saying Ford “wants to give the abortion pill to schoolchildren.”

The Year Of Playing Dirtier

Then there is an article in the NYTimes about how Mark W. Everson, the commissioner of internal revenue, has ordered his agency to delay collecting back taxes from Hurricane Katrina victims until after the Nov. 7 elections.

Four former commissioners said such conduct was unacceptable.

I.R.S. Going Slow Before Election

Also from the NYTimes:

Representative Barbara Cubin, a Wyoming Republican facing a strong challenge in what should be a safe seat, this week told an opponent who uses a wheelchair that she would slap him were he not disabled.

Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, normally a low-key moderate, portrayed the treatment of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison as the product of a sex ring rather than of abuse. . . .

Senator Conrad Burns, fighting for his seat in Montana, hinted that there was a secret party plan for the war in Iraq. . . . Representative John Hostetler, an embattled Indiana Republican, broadcast a radio advertisement accusing the House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi, of harboring a radical homosexual agenda.

John Raese, a businessman running against Senator Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who is 88, disparaged Mr. Byrd’s physical condition.

Candidates Show Strain of Tough Election Season

The GOP is out of ideas, out of touch, out of synch, and out of time. So what are they to do, oh dear oh my? Oh look….let’s work furiously to put gay marriage back in the spotlight after the New Jersey decision…because after all, if there are no ideas left there’s always gay-bashing.

That’s all the GOP has been reduced to. So craven are they, in fact, that they are REJOICING at the New Jersey decision because of the political benefits they think will accrue to them. They’re not crushed by the decision, lamenting the insult to the face of God, no. They’re jumping up and down with joy because of how they think it will harm the Democratic insurgency coming into the mid-term elections by boosting conservative turnout.

“Pro-traditional-marriage organizations ought to give a distinguished service award to the New Jersey Supreme Court,” said the Rev. Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.

When a political party is so bankrupt that it has to resort to bashing a minority to try to stay in power, it has become nothing but a collective bunch of pathetic, hypocritical cowards that deserve to be tossed out like yesterday’s garbage.

Gay activists have much to rejoice over for the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision in Lewis v. Harris extending the right of marriage to same-sex couples–it is a good step forward in the battle for marriage equality. However, there are some aspects of the decision that I find disturbing.

The essence of the decision was essentially this: while same-sex marriage is not a fundamental right, prohibiting it runs afoul of the Equal Protection clause in New Jersey’s constitution. As such, while same-sex couples should have the right to the benefits of marriage, they do not have an accompanying right to have those benefits called “marriage.” The legislature was therefore directed within 180 days to either include same-sex couples in its marriage statutes, or draft a duplicate set of guidelines that provides the same rights as marriage but calls it by another name (e.g., “civil unions.”)

My first concern is on the issue of same-sex marriage not being a fundamental right. A fundamental right is one that is deeply rooted in history and traditions. Marriage itself is universally considered to meet that test. However, the New Jersey Court ruled that while marriage may meet that test, same-sex marriage does not and therefore cannot be considered a fundamental right.

That’s putting too fine a point on it. Why not simply focus on the issue of marriage itself? Same-sex marriage is nothing but one type of marriage, and it’s the issue of marriage itself that ought to have been addressed. An analogy lies in Loving v. Virginia, the US Supreme Court case that struck down bans on interracial marriage. In that case, the Supreme Court could have said “well, marriage meets the fundamental right test, but inter-racial marriage does not and therefore it should not be considered the same.” That’s not what the Court did in that case. Instead, it re-affirmed that marriage itself was the issue, that it is a fundamental right, and that inter-racial marriage was simply a form of the protected right itself. It wasn’t something separate or different. I don’t see why the same logic doesn’t apply on the issue of same-sex marriage.

While this may sound like a nitpick, it’s actually very important. Once a right is found to be fundamental it is extremely difficult for the government to impinge on it in any way–it may do so only to meet a compelling state interest in a way that’s narrowly tailored to meet that interest. That’s a really hard standard to meet…as opposed to the much squishier standard applied under equal protection logic, which in New Jersey meant simply a balancing of the importance of the right versus the need for governmental restriction (a test the court said New Jersey failed to meet in opposing same-sex marriage). While the end result is the same, my belief is that the declaration of a fundamental right would have been a much stronger statement for future courts in other places to weigh when deciding what to do.

The second concern I have is the willingness of the court to send the matter to the legislature, even if it’s with a directive to craft some kind of equal marriage rights. This smacks of the whole “let the legislature decide the issue” argument that conservatives often put forward, knowing fully well that when any proposed minority right is presented to a majority that it is likely to strike it down. Rights are all about protecting minorities against the predations of majorities. It would have been unconscionable to “leave it to the legislature” to decide whether segregation was right or not, whether interracial marriage was right or not, whether “one-person-one-vote” was really in place or not, and so on. The “leave it to the legislature” argument is one that conservatives use to adopt a false veneer of tolerance when they are fully aware and approve of the final outcome. Same goes for the protest about “activist judges”–the justices who decided Brown v. Board of Education would surely have been called “activist” by any measure, and yet today we could not fathom their having decided the case any differently. There would be no social progress without these so-called “activist judges”, who are really judges brave enough to think outside the box–and yet they cause consternation to conservatives because they’d really rather “leave it to the legislature.” In ruling as it did, the New Jersey court seemed to kowtow to some of this logic by giving the legislature some element of choice over something that, as I argued before, should be a fundamental right not subject to a vote

My last concern is with the court’s willingness to let the legislature adopt a “separate but equal” system of marital-type benefits and then call it something other than marriage. If something smells, looks, and acts like a rose then it should be called a rose instead of catering to people’s “sensitivities” about it, which is what the unstated purpose of this provision seems to be. History has shown that “separate but equal” is never equal.

Overall, I give kudos to the court for its bravery in the current political climate, although it would have been better if the court’s language in defense of marriage equality had been stronger. One victory at a time…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is hitting record highs. Gas/oil prices have retreated somewhat. Unemployment is at a historically low 4.6%. Inflation remains under 3%. Interest rates have receded.

By these and other measures such as GDP, the economy is doing well. Why, then, are voters angry about the economy, with a majority saying they disapprove of Bush’s/Republicans’ handling of the economy?

Alan Murray hits the nail on the head with his commentary in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Large numbers of Americans seem to have lost their belief in John F. Kennedy’s famous aphorism that a rising tide lifts all boats. “They know the economy is white hot,” says political analyst Charlie Cook, “but they also know they aren’t in it….There’s a feeling that some people are getting theirs, but we aren’t getting ours.”

There’s a well-known litany of reasons for that. Median earnings have been growing at a disturbingly slow pace, even as profits and high-end pay have soared. Health-care costs are not only increasing, they increasingly are being paid by consumers, not by employers or the government. Pensions are disappearing, as is job security — and any sense of long-term loyalty from employers. As pollster Peter Hart puts it, “there’s no gold watch” waiting at the end of a career these days. He cites a cartoon in which the boss says: “Mr. Jones, the reason we are letting you go is because you’ve given us the best years of your life.”

Meanwhile, a thin slice of America is enjoying unprecedented prosperity. CEO pay is one of the most visible manifestations, rising in the past decade at triple the rate of the median worker’s pay. In…Greenwich, Conn., skilled financiers bring home eight- and nine-digit paychecks, unimaginable in the not-so-distant past. Americans have never been big on the politics of envy, in part because they hoped someday they would join those at the top. But increasingly, they wonder whether the economic game is rigged, and whether all these riches are the result of backdated options or insider trading or some other trickery that doesn’t benefit them.

He goes on to note that the disconnect occurring between the upper class and everyone else may result in the demise of the pro-business, free-market platform popular in Washington for the last quarter century. Increasingly, Democratic challengers like Senatorial contender Sharrod Brown of Ohio are adopting a populist, anti-trade, anti-globalization, anti-immigration, anti-big big business message that is bound to appeal to the struggling and rapidly disappearing American middle class.

I have mixed feelings about this. Obviously the sources of increasing inequality are glaringly obvious and real as described in the article…but I’m concerned about tossing the baby out with the bathwater. America is really feeling the negative effects of globalization (which powers a lot of the deleterious changes being seen in American industry), because our standard of living has been so much higher compared to the rest of the world. Globalization evens the scales, and while that means an improvement to everyone else it means pain for us. Can we really avoid this, though..or should we?

The rest of the world has the same right to a higher standard of living as Americans do. But even if we disagree on this point, it’s hard to see how we could get America to “opt out” of the globalization taking place everywhere else without being left woefully behind. For all its drawbacks, globalization does increase trade, wealth, and access to technology..to the ultimate betterment of all. Can we really afford to build a virtual wall around us, and would such a wall succeed? It never has before.

There’s a lot wrong with globalization that is hurting Americans, and these things must be fixed. A glaringly obvious example is other countries’ disregard for health, labor, and environmental standards for their workers–which allows them to milk their workers for pennies on the dollar while American industry is “saddled” with these obligations. We have to exert strong pressure on our trading partners to adopt similar standards so that all wealth is created fairly without placing unjustifiable burdens on workers or the environment. Another example of globalization gone wrong is countries like China manipulating their currencies to maximize their exports, keeping them cheap regardless of true fundamental supply and demand. This too must stop.

There are also problems with American business itself. Why do CEO’s make ridiculous salaries (more than 42 times that of the average worker) without such pay being tied to solid performance? Why is there so much crookedness surrounding stock option grants? Why are prescription drug prices so out of control when compared to the rest of the world? Why are companies allowed to fund worker retirement plans with risky company stock instead of cash to be invested as the worker wishes? Why are we failing to address the looming crises of social security and medicare, those safety nets for Americans most in need? Why do we keep cutting taxes on those who need it the least instead of those who need it the most? Government has a duty to answer these questions for the sake of the middle class, and my personal belief is that these questions of fair trade and fair business are where Democrats should focus their attention instead of appealing to people’s xenophobia.

Fixing problems like this won’t cure all the pain, but will minimize it while allowing America to reap the longer-term benefits of globalization–improved living standards elsewhere create larger markets for our products. Americans have a long history of believing they live in a meritocracy–a society where anyone who works hard enough can climb the upper rungs of the ladder of success. Globalization and a broken American system of business are increasingly rigging the game against most Americans while letting the upper class elite reap wealth beyond the imagination of most people.

This disparity has to end, and Democrats would do well to address it without digging their heads in the sand against the rest of the world. God knows we’ve done enough of that under the Republicans.

Charlie Cook has an interesting and thorough analysis of the latest NBC/WSJ poll, and compares the numbers to the ones faced by Democrats before the last “wave” election of 1994, in which they lost both Houses of Congress.

On four out of five key indicators of how voters will vote in Congressional elections the GOP is faring substantially worse now than the Democrats did in 1994, and is faring only marginally better on the fifth. Here’s how the numbers ran down:

Question                                 1994             2006

Country headed in right            39%/48%      26%/61%
direction, wrong direction

Presidential job approval,          48%/43%      38%/57%
disapproval rating

Approval, Disapproval of           24%/67%      16%/75%
Congress

Generic congressional ballot      44% GOP/      52% Dem/
preference–”GOP” vs. “Dem”    38% Dem       37% GOP

Your incumbent deserves,        39%/49%       39%/45%
doesn’t deserve re-election

The GOP is just about out of time to turn this shipwreck around.

IBM is suing Amazon.com claiming the latter has infringed several of IBM’s patents, including one entitled “Ordering Items Using An Electronic Catalog”…a technology lying at the very heart of Amazon’s business. These patents seem to have been issued to IBM a long time ago, even as early as the 80’s in association with IBM’s Prodigy service.

I think that this lawsuit is an early portent of huge stakes that lie ahead. In a couple of decades, when/if nanotechnology becomes able to create objects by constructing them using nano-assemblers at the molecular level (think Star Trek’s food replicators) ALL of industry will be composed entirely of information blueprints for making the objects–and of course the patents associated with those blueprints will be extremely important. Patents, as guardians of information, are THE key to the future and these big companies know it…the companies who hold the patents will literally hold the keys to creation. Patents themselves will be the industrial base, not mega-factories spewing out materials. That’s what this lawsuit is about, at it’s most basic primitive level.

The lawsuit is also ridiculous in that the patents at issue seems very overbroad and encompass nearly all of online commerce. But that’s a flaw in patent law itself, and not necessarily the fault of IBM. Patent law seems not to be keeping up with the inherently new, pervasive, easily copied, and rapidly changing nature of Internet technology. Maybe this lawsuit will pave the way to a better set of laws that can better address the intellectual property issues of tomorrow.

I come back from vacation and find Bush whistling a different tune, suddenly claiming he never said we’re going to “stay the course” in Iraq, but that we will “change our tactics.”

So now “stay the course” means “change the tactics,” when before this any suggestion of “changing the tactics” meant “cut and run.” So is it “change the tactics” when Bush is forced into a corner by a threatened Democratic takeover of Congress but “cut and run” when Democrats suggest a change is sorely needed?

It’s good to be back from vacation and in the land of double-speak!

I am leaving on a much-needed vacation to the Smoky Mountains, and will return on October 22nd. I will be away from most of civilization without access to an Internet connection, so I will be unable to update until I get back.

I appreciate your patience and your readership, and I look forward to returning to more good news about the Democrats’ chances of taking back the Congress and this country in November.