The Republican version of the Dems’ “Red to Blue” program is called ROMP, which stands for “Regain Our Majority Program.” But whereas Red to Blue funnels resources to Democratic challengers running in Republican held districts, the NRCC is pursuing an entirely different tactic with ROMP, prompting Daily Kos contributing editor brownsox to astutely observe:
Notice that this ROMP program, ostensibly focused on regaining the Republican majority, seems disproportionately tilted towards protecting incumbent Republican Reps. In fact, out of these 10 districts where the elephants hope to ROMP, exactly one is currently held by a Democrat, John Yarmuth of Kentucky’s 3rd District.
I find this to be a novel and fascinating method of Regaining Their Majority; by not targeting Democratic-held seats. I wish them the best of luck with this; I’m sure it’s going to work out just splendidly. Keep avoiding the Dem-held seats, and they oughta have that ol’ majority back in no time flat.
And yes, Dave Reichert is a charter member of ROMP 2008, yet another indication of just how vulnerable his colleagues understand him to be.
To them, a “majority” is the number of votes needed to prevent a filibuster cloture.
For us, a “majority” is actually the supermajority needed to shut down the minority party’s obstructionist tactics.
Republicans believe a nonfunctioning government is the next best thing to a dysfunctional government.
Maybe ‘romp’ is what’s going to happen to Reichert come November.
Republicans they sure are “Romp Rangers!”
The “borrow and bomb” party is going down big time. Republicans are the party of corruption and cronyism.
They are for corporate profits: the pary of big oil and big pharma. They cause budget deficits and ruin the economy. They get us involved in unecessary foreign wars that waste lives and money. They oppose taking care of veterans and taking responsiblity for their actions.
Iraq: Every six months we are “close” to victory – however that is defined. So we need to keep propping up a puppet government in a Balkanized nation plagued by sectarian strife and rival factions.
Makes sense – huh?
The GOP knows not the difference between offense and defense–witness the various justifications offered for the Iraq debacle. What’s the latest–the terrorists will follow us home? That would be defense. Or, is it we need to spread democracy across the Middle East? That would be offense. Not that the perpetrators of such nonsense differentiate. As Rabbit has proclaimed, liberals must arm and buy stock. Republicans need their own crap stuffed up their asses. Hey, and I have Republican friends.
They could be more optimistic (and delusional too) by changing the name slightly to “RETAIN Our Majority Program”.
Looks like a decent shot for another Republican seat to get ROMP-ed on May 3 in Louisiana’s 6th CD:
“Louisiana Republican Woody Jenkins and Democrat Don Cazayoux captured comfortable victories in primary runoff elections Saturday in the state’s vacant 6th District and will vie in a May 3 special election that should be highly competitive.
With all precincts reporting in Louisiana’s 6th — an area that includes the state capital of Baton Rouge — Jenkins, a well-known newspaper executive and longtime former Louisiana legislator, won the Republican primary by 62 percent to 38 percent over Laurinda Calongne, a consulting company owner who was waging her first bid for political office.
Cazayoux, a state representative, defeated Michael Jackson, another state representative, by 57 percent to 43 percent in the Democratic balloting.”
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmsp.....0002698318
Sounds like the kinda thing the Dems would have done about 8 years ago. Glad we put an end to that nonsense.
Looks to me that the Republicans have already written off the 2008 Congressional elections. They don’t have much money, their accounting is in chaos (either because the director of the office is a crook, or a scapegoat for illegally diverted funds, too early to tell the difference yet). Now this report that their “initiative” is to dig in and try to hold the losses to an acceptable level. What is an “acceptable level” is probably what Roger Rabbit inidicated – keeping the Democratic Senate count down to less than 60 seats, so the Republicans can continue to block Democratic action by threatening a filibuster.
The Republicans will, however, put everything available into McCain’s presidential bid. If they can get McCain into office, they can (a) solidify their control over the CIA, FBI, and the Justice Dept., thereby protecting themselves from investigation for abuses over the past eight years; (b) continue their campaign to tilt elections permanantly to their benefit by ignoring Republican election abuse and selectively prosecuting Democrats for political advantage; (c) effectively dismantal environmental enforcement and financial industry regulation by putting the foxes in charge of the henhouses, and (d) keeping the pardon power available, just in case Bush forgets anyone when he leaves office.
(I kind of suspect that Bush’s last day in office will be to sign a one-page document which pardons everyone on “attached Appendix A”, which is actually a phone-book size document which includes not only everyone in the Bush administration, but also the membership list of the Republican Party and it’s donar base.)
Republicans would also start their early re-write of recent history, claiming that McCain’s election would be an affirmation by the voters that they really like Republicans best after all, thereby justifying the worst excesses of the Bush administration, and claiming for decades hence that evidence of American revulsion over the Bush administration practices were merely biased reporting by the mainsteam media, and that the “silent majority” always loved Bush and his policies.
If the American voters actually fall for Republican propoganda and do elect McCain in 2008, it would be a lot like an abused spouse that falls for the flowers & promises of “I’ll change”, drops the charges & the restraining order, lets the abusive husband move back in, and then gets the sh*t kicked out of her again.
And if, as expected, McCain loses and the Republican lose still more seats, they will revert back to the role which they are actually quite good at: throwing rocks & criticisms at the government and the Democrats, blaming them for everything from the attack on Pearl Harbor (they’ve been blaming FDR for this for decades) to 9/11 (their first response was to blame Clinton, and then only later to start looking for the terrorists), and finally to the huge budget deficit and national debt (yep, they are already trying to blame the “Democratic Congress” for that one, if you can believe it). All of which presumes that they American voters are idiots, by the way.
The Republicans might as well get used to this reduced role. They certainly have proven that they are in over their heads when it comes to actually governing the country.
Personally, I think the Democratic leadership should go ahead and let the Republicans filibuster in Congress. Make ’em stay up and talking for about six weeks straight, 24/7, and then rake them over the coals in the public press about how they are obstructing the business of Congress just to try to block investigations of administration abuses, etc..