Why Republicans Should Lose on Nov 7

The 2006 elections might go down in history as the worst year for mudslinging ever ... that is if the Republicans have anything to say about it. And they are saying/slinging quite a lot!

It shows the utter desperation Republicans feel right now, as the party begins to crash and burn.

Head (of State) games

The trouble starts at the top as Bush lies about whether or not he ever said we should "stay the course" in Iraq.

The Washington Post reports:

President Bush and his aides are annoyed that people keep misinterpreting his Iraq policy as "stay the course." A complete distortion, they say. "That is not a stay-the-course policy," White House press secretary Tony Snow declared yesterday.

Where would anyone have gotten that idea? Well, maybe from Bush.

"We will stay the course. We will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed," he said in Salt Lake City in August.

"We will win in Iraq so long as we stay the course," he said in Milwaukee in July.

"I saw people wondering whether the United States would have the nerve to stay the course and help them succeed," he said after returning from Baghdad in June.

Oops ... it seems the president forgot there is a press corp reporting virtually everything he says. The Washington Post story went on to say: ". . . the White House is cutting and running from "stay the course." A phrase meant to connote steely resolve instead has become a symbol for being out of touch and rigid in the face of a war that seems to grow worse by the week, Republican strategists say."

The Cheney Factor

When asked in an interview with conservative talk radio host Scott Hennen of WDAY in Fargo, N.D. -- "Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" the Vice President responded, "Well, it's a no-brainer for me."

Backpeddling on Friday The Washington Post reports:

Cheney said that he was not referring to an interrogation technique known as "waterboarding" when he told an interviewer this week that dunking terrorism suspects in water was a "no-brainer."

Cheney told reporters aboard Air Force Two last night that he did not talk about any specific interrogation technique during his interview Tuesday with a conservative radio host.

"I didn't say anything about waterboarding. . . . He didn't even use that phrase," Cheney said on a flight to Washington from South Carolina.

Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said Cheney was not talking about torture: "You think Dick Cheney's going to slip up on something like this? No, come on."

Asked about Cheney's comments at a photo shoot on Friday, President Bush said, "This country doesn't torture, we're not going to torture."

"Is the White House that was for torture before it was against it, now for torture again?" Sen. John Kerry said.

And now a word from the pundits

Earlier this week radio talk show host, and self proclaimed drug addict, Rush Limbaugh accused actor/activist Michael J Fox of either "going off his medication" or "acting" in ads Fox produced for Congressional candidates who support stem cell research.

In a response to the charges, Fox defended his appearance in recent political campaign ads, saying he was neither acting nor off his medication for Parkinson's disease.

On the contrary, he had been overmedicated, the actor said during an interview aired on Thursday's "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric."

"The irony of it is that I was too medicated," Fox told Couric, adding that his jumpy condition as he spoke to her reflected "a dearth of medication - not by design. I just take it, and it kicks in when it kicks in."

"That's funny - the notion that you could calculate it for effect," he said. "Would that we could."

More Republican Dirty Tricks

In an article titled "The Year of Playing Dirtier" the Washington Post presents just a few of this election season's Republican dirty tricks. Seems Rove and the gang are working overtime to try and salvage their sinking ship.

The result has been a carnival of ugly, especially on the GOP side, where operatives are trying to counter what polls show is a hostile political environment by casting opponents as fatally flawed characters. The National Republican Campaign Committee is spending more than 90 percent of its advertising budget on negative ads, according to GOP operatives, and the rest of the party seems to be following suit.

Here are just a few of the negative ads the Post calls "Positively Surreal":

· Rep. Ron Kind pays for sex!

Well, that's what the Republican challenger for his Wisconsin congressional seat, Paul R. Nelson, claims in new ads, the ones with "XXX" stamped across Kind's face.

It turns out that Kind -- along with more than 200 of his fellow hedonists in the House -- opposed an unsuccessful effort to stop the National Institutes of Health from pursuing peer-reviewed sex studies. According to Nelson's ads, the Democrat also wants to "let illegal aliens burn the American flag" and "allow convicted child molesters to enter this country."

· In New York, the NRCC ran an ad accusing Democratic House candidate Michael A. Arcuri, a district attorney, of using taxpayer dollars for phone sex. "Hi, sexy," a dancing woman purrs. "You've reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line." It turns out that one of Arcuri's aides had tried to call the state Division of Criminal Justice, which had a number that was almost identical to that of a porn line. The misdial cost taxpayers $1.25.

· In Ohio, GOP gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell, trailing by more than 20 points in polls, has accused front-running Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland of protecting a former aide who was convicted in 1994 on a misdemeanor indecency charge. Blackwell's campaign is also warning voters through suggestive "push polls" that Strickland failed to support a resolution condemning sex between adults and children. Strickland, a psychiatrist, objected to a line suggesting that sexually abused children cannot have healthy relationships when they grow up.

· The Republican Party of Wisconsin distributed a mailing linking Democratic House candidate Steve Kagen to a convicted serial killer and child rapist. The supposed connection: The "bloodthirsty" attorney for the killer had also done legal work for Kagen.

· In two dozen congressional districts, a political action committee supported by a white Indianapolis businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, is running ads saying Democrats want to abort black babies. A voice says, "If you make a little mistake with one of your hos, you'll want to dispose of that problem tout de suite, no questions asked."

· In the most controversial recent ad, the Republican National Committee slammed Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) for attending a Playboy-sponsored Super Bowl party. In the ad, a scantily clad white actress winks as she reminisces about good times with Ford, who is black. That ad has been pulled, but the RNC has a new one saying Ford "wants to give the abortion pill to schoolchildren."

The Post goes on to say:

One GOP strategy has been raising the specter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco liberal, becoming speaker; for example, Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.) is airing radio ads warning that a Democratic victory would allow Pelosi to "put in motion her radical plan to advance the homosexual agenda."

The RNC has raised eyebrows with an ad consisting almost entirely of al-Qaeda videos starring Osama bin Laden and his top deputies. There is no sound except the ticking of a bomb before the final warning: "These are the stakes. Vote November 7th." John G. Geer, a Vanderbilt professor who has written a book defending negative political ads, said he told a well-connected Republican friend in Washington that the ticking-bomb ploy seemed like a desperation move. The friend e-mailed back: "John, we're desperate!"

It's time to show this desperate group the door.