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Because Republicans are scared right now. Their party loyalty, which has shown virtually no cracks at all during Bush's entire term in office, is about to shatter into a million little pieces. Democrats need to pick up those pieces, and build some good legislation with them. Right now.
And so all eyes in the American political world turn to West Virginia -- a state none of the pundits and pontificators know (or care) much about. They certainly never expected to be in a hotel room in Wheeling or Charleston in the middle of May this year. Because the conventional wisdom set in stone -- before anybody actually cast a primary vote -- was that "Super Duper Tsunami Tuesday" (as it was called back then, mercifully shortened now to just "Super Tuesday") was going to be the whole Magilla. On the not-as-super-Wednesday that followed, we would have a Democratic nominee, and could then focus on beating Rudy Giuliani in November.
I sincerely hope the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) printed out the roll call of this vote, because it will be so easy to use against these 178 Republican House members back in their home district come re-election time. It's pretty hard to explain to your constituents why you're on the record as being against Mother's Day.
It was a telling sign that neither Democratic candidate saw fit to visit Punxsutawney before the Pennsylvania primary. Nobody wanted the press to remember Bill Murray's Groundhog Day in any way, shape or form. But even without stump speeches next to Punxsutawney Phil, it's hard not to think of living the same day over and over and over again when looking ahead to the nine contests that remain. Because nothing much is likely to be decided by them.
It's rare (in an election year) that the opposition hands you an issue that is just begging to be exploited politically. Democrats shouldn't drop the ball on this one, and should use it as an enormous lever in the Senate to get the bill actually passed. Overturning a Bush veto would reap all kinds of rewards in November, and Democrats would be fools to pass this chance up.
It's been a long six weeks since we last played this game, and I'm just relieved that in the intervening time, the media and both campaigns had enough time to accurately identify and portray the relative positions of each candidate on a range of important issues on which they have honest differences; issues that everyday Americans actually care about as being relevant to their lives.
Ha! (Belated) April Fool!
Call him a scapegoat, lightning rod, whipping boy, or even sacrificial lamb (choose your own metaphor, in other words), but no matter who the nominee is, will he give sufficient cover so this eventual nominee can unite Democratic voters to produce a win in November?
Since the campaigns of both Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama have seemingly taken my advice earlier this week, and are both concentrating on attacking Senator John McCain rather than each other, we have the luxury of getting away from the campaign trail this week and focusing on a few other things -- the biggest of which is the upcoming testimony before Congress by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker on the situation in Iraq. More on that in a moment.
That is the "prize" they're both fighting for, remember -- the chance to face off against McCain in the general election. So why not compete with each other on who is the best candidate to do so? And why shouldn't this competition show each candidate's strategy for doing so now, instead of later?
The first was the fact that (although few noticed it) she blew the opening line on her appearance on Saturday Night Live. For the almost the entire 82-year history of the show (ahem), the opener has been the very-easy-to-pronounce: "Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night!" Hillary went all Ivy League on us, changing it to "it is Saturday Night." Sheesh. Luckily for her, nobody in the media noticed the gaffe, and it went largely unremarked. But some things are sacred, which is why I feel duty-bound to point it out here.