Democrats Campaigning like Republicans, Republicans Campaigning Like Maniacs

For years Republicans benefited from an unlevel playing field, where they were free to launch broad personal attacks and whisper campaigns at their opponents without expecting to suffer from any similar attacks in return.

Well, this ain't your daddy's Democratic Party:

In the wake of the Mark Foley page scandal, Democrats are targeting the personal lives of Republicans in numerous key House races as part of a campaign to capitalize on voter disgust with the messy personal lives and alleged character defects among elected officials [...]

In New Jersey, Democratic candidate Linda Stender this week sent voters a two-page brochure accusing Rep. Mike Ferguson (R) of improperly preying on young women in a fashionable D.C. nightclub. Stender, who is shown by polls to be within striking distance of Ferguson, said the Foley affair "opened the door to talk about the ethical challenge of my opponent." Ferguson has denied the allegations, and a spokeswoman last night called the attacks "pathetic and desperate."

Democratic candidate Chris Carney is running an ad accusing Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.) of "repeatedly choking" and "attempting to strangle" a young mistress. Foley and Sherwood share "the arrogance of power," said Carney. "They're willing to cover up these types of things to retain power."

Sherwood has apologized for the affair but said in a television ad that the "allegation of abuse was never true."

Democratic candidate Kirsten Gillibrand is calling on GOP Rep. John E. Sweeney in Upstate New York to explain a drunken driving arrest 30 years ago and a more recent car accident. "Your decision to release any and all records related to your arrests and other incidents with law enforcement will send an important signal about your willingness to come clean with voters," Gillibrand said in a letter to Sweeney this week.

I honestly feel that this speaks to character and leadership, and that Republicans brought this upon themselves by wrapping their brand in the shroud of moral rectitude and Christian values. It has always been clear that this was a pose, even before a top Bush Administration official came out and said "Yeah, it's a pose."

Kuo, who has complained publicly in the past about the funding shortfalls, goes several steps further in his new book.

He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.

More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan” events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

This buttresses Tucker Carlson's biennal moment of truth where he admitted that elites in the Republican Party have nothing but contempt for evangelicals.



You cannot flaunt your standing in the Christian community, still have members of your party embroiled in scandal after scandal after scandal, and expect people not to notice that you don't believe your own hype. Democrats are sticking it right to the Republicans on this, and it's been a long time coming.

Meanwhile, Republicans are losing their minds with fear over losing their precious majorities, and the pressure is starting to get to some of the more threatened incumbents. Like John Doolittle:

In citing his 26-year U.S. Air Force career, Brown, a retired lieutenant colonel, mentioned his service in Saudi Arabia mapping surveillance flights in Iraq's "no-fly zone." He said the experience convinced him there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that the war was a misguided diversion from the war on terror...

Arguing that Iraq is central to the war on terror, Doolittle responded: "This is a guy who had weapons of mass destruction. President Clinton said he had weapons of mass destruction. Vice President Gore said he had weapons of mass destruction...But Lt. Col. Charlie Brown who flew reconnaissance missions says there were no weapons of mass destruction.

"Why didn't you pick up the phone and call the commander in chief? Do you really expect us to sit here and believe that ridiculous story?"

Like Chris Shays:

"Now I've seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture. It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from [Maryland] who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked."

Now, it was reported today that George Bush has no contingency plan if the GOP loses control of Congress. Of course not, he didn't have a plan for Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina or North Korea. But I don't think his party has any plan to win, given the above quotes. Like cornered animals, they're lashing out because they know they've been caught. Caught lying to the voters, caught forsaking their vaunted morals - essentially, caught with their pants down.