I've read this thread three times, and I still don't understand what the squabble is all about.
The Democrats are going to be overconfident in their victory, just as the Republicans were in 1994. The Dem's will believe that they were handed a mandate--just as the Republicans thought in 1994--and will try to pass legislation based on that mistaken notion.
However, there is a distinction between the midterm elections of 1994 and those of 2006.
In 1994, the country was still reeling from a series of moves by the Clinton administation that President Clinton (and Hillary) introduced too rapidly. Nationalized health care was the foremost issue, but there were others. For those in the "red" states, the AWB was just salt in the wounds.
The 1994 Republican revolution was based on Newt Gingrich's idea to actually write a platform--the Contract for America--that the public could easily digest and agree with.
The Contract was full of new ideas, ideas that appealed to the average voter.
A few years later, though, many Republicans wandered off the reservation, infatuated with their own media-hyped reputations.
To his credit, Howard Dean has studied Newt's 1994 playbook and taken several pages from it. Those here who have been receiving Dean's emails on a regular basis have probably noted that he's toned down the screeching rhetoric. Compared to a few months ago, he sounds downright statesman-like.
But the comparison between Newt and Dean's contracts are stark. Gingrich's contract was one based not only on The Word of Ronald Reagan, but also upon Gingrich's own observations of the politics and affairs of the 20th century.
Dean's new contract just seems like a quieter version of his previous one: elect us, and we promise we won't be like Bush.
Dean talks about a "timetable" for withdrawal from Iraq. Bush talks about "benchmarks."
Sounds like semantics to me.
Noticeablely absent from the debate is any discussion about Social Security reform. For decades, that was the Democrat's scare for the senior citizen voting bloc. After GW's failed attempt to rally support to reform the system, the Republicans seem likewise loath to touch that rail again. I guess both parties must now want to reduce the elderly to eating dog food.
Both parties talk about "affordable" health care, although "affordable" is a relative term. Over the past week or so, I've had a pretty serious respiratory infection. The cost for 10 pills to knock out the infection was $107, after prescription drug insurance. I don't expect anything from .gov, so my plans for my senior years are to make enough money to pay for the pills I'll need. Or at least make more money than saying "Good Morning" at a WalMart.
If Howard Dean were a lone voice in the wilderness, I would probably take him more seriously. But the global/strategic divide between Dean's beliefs and Gingrich's regarding the Middle East leaves little middle ground.
If I understand Dean, Kennedy, Pelosi and others (and feel free to correct me), they're comparing Iraq to Viet Nam. They're looking at the admittedly slow progress, counting the bodies of US soldiers, and saying it's not worth it.
As I compare the two, I see vast differences. In Viet Nam, we went in to essentially rescue an ally (France) to help a SEATO ally from being overrun by a government that--at least by that time--had forged alliances with the ChiComs.
Right? Wrong?
In Iraq, I see our country doing what we did by first invading and then rebuilding Germany and Japan: conquer, establish a friendly government, and leave with troops nearby, and staging areas that would discourage our enemy (the USSR) from trying to gain a foothold.
If CNN had interviewed the average Joe on the street in 1941 and asked if he would accept the idea of US troops still being in Germany and Japan as "occupying" forces for another 12 or 13 years...I'd bet the Average Joe would have said yes.
This is not Viet Nam. Pacification of the Middle East is just as important to us now as pacifying Europe and the Japanese regions was in the 1940's.
But, now we have a new leadership in Congress. And I fear that they will turn the Middle East into another Viet Nam: retreat with honor.
