There are 28 incumbant republican senators up for reelection in 2008. They will need to present their constituents a reason for sending them back to the senate. November 2006 made it clear that the majority of them are not going to get there by clinging to presidential coat-tails, in fact I would make the case that jumping ship and criticizing Bush's war policy isnt even going to be enough. Its going to call for active, on-the-record repudiation.

What to do? Well, lets see...

There are things that you and I know that can be frustratingly obvious. Things that make you want to grab Mr. and Mrs. Merka by the shoulders and give 'em a shake. Since politics is a game played between the 40 yard lines, especially this close to an election, the message gets more divisive and the audience smaller. But I'm afriad dubya just fell into a trap that even fox viewers can figure out.

For (how long now?) the republicans have framed the Iraq debate as "stay the course" vs. "cut and run" and it was an effective message. The democrats were baited into denying the cut and run thing and saying that stay the course was no plan. This merely begged the question that the media blithely picked up on: "well, what is your plan" and this became "you have no plan". We have been stuck with this "no plan" thing for a while.