Posted by
JDComments on Friday, November 03, 2006 9:52:36 AM
As Election Day nears with all it 's gloomy predictions for Republicans, we should all take a moment to consider who is actually running against them, and thus stand to lose if the Republicans are not swept from power.
The obvious answer is the Democrats, a party Ann Coulter has declared "dying", and I think that if they don't take at least control of the House this year, considering that all historical trends and public opinion regarding the Iraqi War are in their favor, they will indeed begin a death spiral as their leftist constituency either succeeds in totally marginalizing the party for the 2008 elections, or perhaps begins to seek another home, leaving a shell behind with no hope of electoral victory. More importantly, at a time when many people are dissatisfied and looking for new ideas, the failure of the Dems to provide these would prove the intellectual bankruptcy of the party, and its inability to connect with the majority of Americans at a time when those Americans are open to being swayed could be a death knell for a party which hasn't offered any substantial ideas since the 1930's. Indeed, in many respects, this is a make or break election for the Democratic party, and they should be very nervous.
But there is another opponent in this race, and that is the MSM, whose Liberal bias has been documented by a recent study that found that this campaign season more than 77% of articles about Dems were positive, versus only 12% of Republican reporting [see
article ]. This huge discrepancy has basically removed any attempt at impartiality by the Liberal media, as they , like the Dems, have put it all on the table this election. Since they have, in many instances, just about declared victory, a loss would be reminiscent of that famous headline in 1948 declaring a Dewey Victory over Truman. The loss of credibility for the MSM should be enormous, and where once upon a time there was no alternative, with the rise of cable and the Internet, it is a very real possibility that they, too, could take a fatal hit if the Republicans are not vanquished this year. Who knows, Katie Couric may have arrived just in time to close the lights and lock the door on these dinosaurs.
Lastly, I think it would be fair to assume that polls, which were disparaged somewhat in 2004, would really look foolish if their assessments of the last two months prove just as wrong as the exit polls in the last Presidential election. Polling is a Liberal construct to some degree, since it is premised on the idea that statistical samples can be extrapolated ad nauseam, and that we are all just actuarial entries[Auguste Comte, the Frenchman who founded sociology, which laid the foundation for studying people as groups as opposed to individuals, was descended from the intellectual genealogy of the French Encyclopedists, the fermenters of the Revolution]. The inherent biases and malleability of polling have been revealed more and more, and today it is hard not to look at them as a tool which is used, just like advertising and glad handing, by political parties to gain an advantage over their opponents. If the Dems are unsuccessful this year, I think the entire polling concept will lose validity in many peoples' eyes, and what little political influence it has will be gone.
There you have it. If we get out and vote, and if we can keep the Republicans in power, we will not only deliver a perhaps fatal blow to the Dems, but we can also register our displeasure with the MSM, and declare our independence from the statistical confines that pollsters seek to wrap us in. Striking a blow against all three would truly make this a very enjoyable election .