I'm feeling a little disoriented because I really couldn't bear to know the details of what Condi was saying (I'm sure someone will fill me in about what I need to know), so I'm going to chime in with more about the Pennsylvania senate race.
The New Yorker has an article this week about Spector v. Toomey. Unfortunately they don't have it up on their website. It didn't tell me too much I didn't know (except about Arlen Spector's fondness for martinis, and the Republicans' perception that McCain has a pathologic hatred of Bush "If Bush wanted to raise taxes, McCain would want to lower them"), but it led to a few more thoughts for me about the race.
Earlier this week, I talked about my desire for the "respectable Republicans" like McCain, Hagel, Lugar, Snowe, Chaffee etc. to take back the party so that we didn't have to worry about the end of the civilization every time we lost an election.
This article gave me a little more insight into the workings of the Republican party factions, and let's just say this takeover is both necessary, but somewhat unlikely.
Spector is being supported by Bush and Santorum (the Republican version of the "establishment"), while Toomey is being supported by the Club for Growth and folks like Bork and Grover Norquist. In a bizarro world sort of way, I see Toomey and his fellows as the counterpart to our progressives (purer in ideology, anti-establishment, rather be right than win). Bush and his ilk are the establishment (win at all costs, flip flop like you mean it). I've decided that the one thing that really sets Bush apart from other members of the Republican establishment is his obsession with Iraq, which is just well...weird, frankly. Bush is dangerous, but less because he hews 100% to conservative ideology, but because he does whatever he feels like, and accomplishes it very badly. So I guess what I took from that is that the Toomey faction is wrong and dangerous, and opposed to the Bush faction, which is also wrong and dangerous. They may be opposed to each other, but they are really close enough in the awfulness scale as to not make much difference.
Plus, Stephen Moore of Club for Growth said something like "They are all in their 70s so we're waiting for them to die off" about guys like McCain and Spector and Lugar...presumably so that they can be replaced by raving Toomey types. This is the problem when the Republicans can't raise a farm team of moderates, or at least principled conservatives.
Anyway, this brings me back to the senate race. My free advice for Joe Hoeffel (so take it for what it's worth). If Toomey wins, he's going to have momentum and excitement (and a certain, shall I say Deanian grassroots energy) behind him. Hoeffel's best tactic is to paint Toomey as a nut (hey, worked against Dean)--not just in policy, but in personality. He should be seen as unstable and an ideologue, in contrast to Hoeffel's steady, adult, moderation.
If Spector wins, Hoeffel's tactic should be to paint Spector as too old--a man who's time is finished (worked pretty well for Tom Carper v. Bill Roth in Delaware 2000). He can and should tie him to Bush, of course, but I think the "been serving too long" idea could have a lot of traction also.
In either case, Hoeffel's got to define himself well for the voters, starting in SE PA, but also in Pittsburgh and any other pockets of Dem voters out there.
I have put the brakes on political giving since Mr. JMS has been out of a job, but whenever we're back on the road to financial solvency again, I'd like to give money to:
- Hoeffel
- Whoever is running against Tom Delay (is the fellow currently advertising his opponent, or is there still some primary coming up?)
- politicians who advertise on Kos, post-flap
- DFA 2.0
- Salazar in CO
- Whoever is running for Zell Miller's old seat
- Whoever is running for Hoeffel's old seat
Boy, that felt better than thinking about buying 7 more pairs of black shoes...