RUSH: There’s a story out there today, NBC Chicago, about all the profanity being uttered in the political spectrum today, and what’s with all that X-rated language here. It’s an attempt to justify it on the Democrat side. So that’s a companion story to this in the New York Times: ”Democrats Must Attack to Win in 2010, Strategists Say.’ — New Jersey Republicans complain that Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, has turned nasty to gain ground in his re-election bid this year. Republicans elsewhere should brace themselves. That is because Mr. Corzine’s strategy for a comeback victory has turned into a template for Democratic candidates to survive in the 2010 midterm elections. Its shorthand description: winning ugly. Now that Democrats control the White House, Congress and most governorships, voters’ discontent with the status quo represents their burden, which has Democratic strategists considering tactics to push back challengers.
‘Charlie Cook, the nonpartisan political handicapper, framed the Democrats’ challenge for 2010 more bluntly. It does not track the genial, new-politics identity that President Obama has cultivated. ‘They’re going to have to play really rough,’ said Mr. Cook, who pegs Democrats’ chances for holding the House next year at only slightly better than even. ‘For the average Democratic Congressional incumbent, the opposition researcher will be the most important person in the campaign.’ … The fallout for Democratic Congressional candidates is clear. In a recent Gallup survey, independent voters preferred Republican candidates for Congress by 45 percent to 36 percent; last October, they favored Democratic candidates 46 percent to 39 percent.’ So the nonpartisan Charlie Cook (coughing) says the Democrats have to play rough to hold on. That means dirt, folks. The dirty little secret about this is when do they not? I mean, what the hell were they doing the whole eight years of Bush, but particularly the last five after we went into Iraq? For crying out loud.
If you read deep into the story, independents prefer the Republican Party 45-36. Now, we’re always told — I talked about this at great length on Friday — we are always told by these same people, the John Harwoods and the Charlie Cooks that if the Republicans attack — most recently it was Obama — if the Republicans attack, those moderates — Frank Luntz tells us this, too — that the moderates are going to turn tail and they’re going to make fast tracks to the Democrat Party because the moderates don’t like contretemps, the moderates don’t like arguing, the moderates don’t like tension, the moderates don’t like stress, the moderates just want everybody to get along, damn it. So we’re told and a bunch of saps on our side believe that we can’t be critical of our political opponents because these precious moderates — I tell you, if I’m a political party and my election depends on moderates, I close the party. It means the party stands for nothing. I made a great point about this to Jamie Gangel. This is just absolutely absurd.
The Republican Party, if it thinks that its future is the Lindsey Grahamnestys and the John McCains of the world, then they better just close the party down and start it up as something new. Call it the moderate party. I mean, why don’t you just go for it? If the moderates are the key to the success in electoral politics, shut down the Republican Party, we’ll take that over, and you guys call yourselves the moderate party, and you go out there and have at it. And you buy up all of these claims that the Democrats and the media make, you better not criticize Democrats, no, siree, you do that and those moderates are going to turn tail they’re going to run so fast for the Democrats, they don’t want to hear that. So now the New York Times is running a story — and everybody loves and respects Charlie Cook in electoral politics — the Democrats are going to have to attack. It’s vicious out there. I mean it’s really bad. The Democrats are losing big time, because of policy. They’re going to have to attack.
‘President Barack Obama called rap star Kanye West ‘a jackass.’ Vice President Joe Biden told a senator to ‘Gimme a f–ing break!’ Economic adviser Christina Romer declared that Americans had yet to have their ‘holy s–‘ moment over the economy. Those who pay attention to political rhetoric say an unusual amount of profanity has emanated from this White House — even without counting famously colorful White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. But before this statement becomes fodder for yet another partisan debate (with conservatives saying Obama is disgracing the presidency, and liberals that the media are once again being unfair), they quickly add that Team Obama is no crasser than administrations past. It’s just that they are being quoted more accurately. What’s different, according to linguists, media analysts and reporters who’ve covered past administrations is the media: Networks and newspapers have become far more willing to run with quotes, video and audio –‘ Oh, so it’s really nothing new, a new low has not been reached, it’s always been this way, it’s just now the media is more accurately quoting these people. Haynes Johnson, former reporter, Washington Post, ‘Cursing happened all the time, across the board, wherever you went in the White House or on the trail or in campaign offices.’
‘At the Post, Johnson said ‘we had a huge discussion about this and it finally got in,’ but he added ‘in most of these conversations that I am talking about, there was an understanding that you weren’t going to quote that language. The same way you didn’t write about Jack Kennedy and sex. It was the same attitude,’ Johnson said. ‘You protected your sources. You did not want to embarrass them.” And then of course we have the congressman from Orlando who called Republicans Neanderthals, Grayson. This guy is being defended. ‘Oh, he’s finally getting tough with these mean Republicans. These mean Republicans are standing in the way of passing everything. These Republicans are saying all this rotten stuff about Obama, it’s about time that Grayson got in gear here. Grayson showed the Democrats how to do it.’ I thought that was going to scare off the moderates. I thought the moderates don’t like that kind of politics? See, the Republicans allow themselves to be shut up by the dictates and the fear warnings coming from the left, whose only objective is to silence opposition. And the people that run our party in the past, ‘All right, you want to like us? Good, we want you to like us, too, so we’ll shut up, we’ll do what you say.’ And they still try to cut ’em off at the knees.
I’ll tell you what I think’s going on out there. I think the New York Times must not see the ads in Virginia, the Democrat, the mealymouthed idiot named Creigh Deeds. Deeds is going full negative all the time, accusing Bob McDonnell, the Republican, of hating women, even though he’s married to a woman, has three daughters, one of his daughters was a platoon leader in Iraq. I wonder if Creigh Deeds has a daughter who is a platoon leader in Iraq? Sounds to me like Creigh Deeds doesn’t like strong, independent professional women. And that, by the way, is an interesting race to watch. Next month governor, Virginia, the Republican is Robert McDonnell, he is leading the Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, by nine points, and that’s after the usual Democrat smear tactics, which highlighted by portraying McDonnell as an anti-female caveman despite having a wife, three daughters, and a platoon leader daughter in Iraq. Did you see the Democrats are worried of what this portends for 2010.
Washington Post analyzed polling data. They found four critical shifts among the voters who propelled Obama into the White House. This is in Virginia now. Number one, only half the Obama voters from 2008 say they’re certain to vote. Two-thirds of McCain voters in 2008 say they are going to vote. Second, there is a notable lack of energy in the African-American community. When Obama won, they were 20% of the vote in Virginia. Next month they are expected to represent only 12%. That’s huge. Third, younger voter statistics are even worse. Last time out, 2008, they were 21% of the vote. Next month they are expected to comprise only 8% of the vote. And fourth, the so-called intensity gap between Democrats and Republicans has completely flipped. Just as it has in a lot of places around the country and that’s why they’re worried about this election, it’s done this in New Jersey, too. Now, things have gotten so bad that R. Creigh Deeds, a Democrat, went out of his way to distance himself from Obama! Which ticked off Democrat leaders. And doing so is not going to help Deeds. The Democrat agenda is so radical, it is so wrong for America, there’s no running away from it. And Creigh Deeds, R. Creigh Deeds and the Democrats are going to soon learn that the hard way.