Republicans' latest fear tactic: Urging voters not to give Barack Obama a filibuster-proof majority of Democrats in the Senate. (The filibuster allows 41 senators to halt legislation that the other 59 senators want to enact into law.)
The good news is that Republicans are retreating. They've conceded the presidency to Obama, and they're trying to save the Senate from becoming reasonably friendly territory for Obama's presidency.
It would be a shame if they succeed. Perhaps they won't: I've yet to hear any real voters say they're scared of putting "too many" Democrats into office.
But here's what the GOP is saying:
The Telegraph:
In North Carolina, where Senator Elizabeth Dole seems set to lose, Republicans are running adverts that appear to take an Obama victory for granted, warning that the Democrat will have a "blank cheque" if her rival Kay Hagen wins. "These liberals want complete control of government in a time of crisis," the narrator says. "All branches of Government. No checks and balances."
The argument against that foolishness is really pretty obvious.
No state should let the Republicans scare it into electing or re-electing a Republican senator. Why weaken your state by electing a member of the weaker party to the Senate? If Democrats are going to have greater control than Republicans, Republican senators will have relatively little power in the Senate. That's not good for states such as Kansas, which seems likely to still have two Republican senators after the election.
Indeed, the risks of voting for a Republican senator are far greater than the risks of giving Democrats "unfettered" power by adding Democrats to the Senate. Because "liberals" are no where near taking over Congress, even if Republicans are reduced to a 40-seat, or smaller, minority.
Even with 60 non-Republican senators in Congress:
-- America still won't have a majority of "liberals" in the Senate. Why? Because over the past eight years, roughly 14 Democratic senators have voted Republican every time they should not have -- allowing spying on American citizens and soldiers, approving the endless occupation of Iraq and failing to halt such Bush administration abuses as torture, unlimited imprisonment without trial and routine disregard for laws passed by the Congress.
-- The Senate still won't have a filibuster-proof majority of Democrats. Why? Because Joe Lieberman is not a Democrat, he is an independent who only barely endears himself to his liberal home-state voters but generally commits as many Republican acts as he can get away with. And because Bernie Sanders of Vermont isn't a Democrat either.
-- Obama and the nation will face extremely difficult challenges immediately, and their hands will be tied by crises that will prohibit them from enacting a "liberal" agenda.
Fear is the only weapon Republicans possess. This election cycle, they haven't persuaded us to fear Iraq, Iran, Russia, Obama or any other of their favorite bogey men.
There's no reason for Red State voters to embrace Republican fears of a Democratic-controlled Senate. Quite the contrary.