Over the course of the last several months I have heard numerous antidotes about “conservative” voters turning their backs on the GOP in the upcoming mid-term elections. NBC Nightly News did a story back in August about a registered Republican voter who said she was voting Democrat in the next election because she did not think the current party and leadership was doing enough for her daughter’s generation. She was particularly alarmed by the rising level of spending and little attention to the budget deficits accumulated since 9/11. Then there are the growing numbers of Iraq war veterans returning home and running as Democrats in various state and federal elections.

But the comments posted on the Washington Monthly blog site “Showdown ’06″ by one self-described “conservative” really gives reason to hope that this year may be the year to turn the tide:

If the Democrats take the disgusting moral hypocrisy of a Republican Party that aids child predators, and use the awareness of that hypocrisy to bring credibility in the public’s eyes to the true concept that the Republican elite are hypocrites on all sorts of issues, than the Democrats can be the majority Party that Rove wishes his Coalition of Hypocrites could be.

And my favorite part:

I’m not a Democrat, and I am a conservative. But because I am a conservative, I will vote Democrat in the coming mid term election and hope that the Republican Hypocrites lose this election in a landslide.

Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) has checked himself into an alcohol treatment center as way of explaining why he pursued a number of male interns while in Congress. From the AP:

“I strongly believe that I am an alcoholic and have accepted the need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and other behavioral problems,” Foley said in a statement, Roth told the AP.

Foley, a Republican, abruptly quit Congress on Friday after reports surfaced that he’d sent sexually charged electronic messages to boys working as pages. In the statement, Foley said the “events that led to my resignation have crystalized recognition of my long-standing and significant alcoholism and emotional difficulties.”

“I deeply regret and accept full responsibility for the harm I have caused,” Foley said. He also expressed “gratitude for the prayers and words of encouragement that have been conveyed to me.”

In another example of the duplicity that has become the GOP, Foley has decided to blame something else on his behavior. Just come out and say you are a perv and that you have used the power and influence of your office to cause harm to others.

What is more impressive are the reports over the weekend that the house leadership actually knew of Foley’s problem long before it went public, which has resulted in calls for the leadership (Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Boehner) to resign from within the party.

Many more years ago than I really want to admit, I learned a valuable lesson about people and their value systems. Fear, you see, is the underlying emotion that controls everything a person is or does in life. It is fear that keeps a person loyal to their God. Break God’s rules and you will have to face God’s consequences. Fear is a wonderful tool used throughout the Bible to prove how powerful the Almighty is.

Fear is the one thing that keeps us from doing all the things we want to do, but are afraid of the consequences. About a decade ago a common bumper sticker was “No Fear”, indicating that the person in the car simply had no bounds. For a parent the mere presence of such a symbol would create it’s own state of fear and anguish. Think of how convenient is fear during child development. Promises of getting your mouth washed out with soap, or making funny faces and never looking normal again, or…well, there is the going blind thing. Fear is quite useful in all of these cases.

The “fear” entry on Wikipedia constructs a nice definition of fear within the context of terror:

“Terror” refers to a pronounced state of fear, which usually occurs after the state of horror, when someone becomes overwhelmed with a sense of immediate danger. Also, it can be caused by seeing the (sometimes extreme) phobia. Thus, terror overwhelms the person to the point of making irrational choices and non-typical behavior.

Our government is another great abuser of fear. We are afraid that what we have today is the best we can do, and that without it we are all doomed to die. (Newsflash: We are all going to die someday and there is nothing any of us can do about it.) The Republicants knows this all too well, and are governed by the principles that they are able to control elections and the emotions of voters by constantly speaking to their fears and governing by default and “irrational choices”.

Do you remember what you were doing in the summer of 2001? More importantly, do you remember what your President and his Congress were doing in the summer of 2001? I do.

Just a few short weeks before 9/11 our President was perched at his Crawford, Texas ranch enjoying a very long vacation (5 weeks if I remember correctly). His attention was focused on the moral dilemma of stem cell research and how he could use the Christian cloth he had wrapped himself in to suppress promising research for curing diseases. This topic was so important that he took time away from chopping wood and barbecuing to address the nation in primetime.

If the Bush administration was so focused on terrorists (namely al Qaeda) why did he never once speak to the American people about the problem? After all, Bush knew that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the USS Cole in the Fall of 2000. Why did he not go on national television to the tell the American people that he knew who attacked our service men and women? Why did the President not speak directly and openly to the American people and our enemies alike and say that the United States was not going to take it and that he would develop a master plan for eliminating terror from the face of the Earth? Why was Bush and Company not more proactive in their approach to the war on terror?

This is the kind of questioning that conspiracy theorists love to hear, because it is so easy to say that the President wanted to be attacked. Personally, I just think the President was distracted with giving tax breaks to the most wealthy and in becoming our moral leader on deeply personal issues and that he simply could not be bothered with the big picture.

Five plus years is a long time ago for some of us. Perhaps our memories have been clouded over with more recent events. So I ask then, what were the Republicans (Bush and Company) concerned with in the Spring of 2005? Was it the war in Iraq? Was it Afghanistan? Osama bin Laden? Was it on protecting our borders? Was it beefing up security on freight shipments and cargo ships that enter our ports everyday? The answer is no. The Republicans were worried about the obviously brain-dead Terri Schiavo and having her feeding tube removed. They [Republicans] simply could not stand to have a moral and personal decision go with intervening by creating bogus laws for one specific case. Once again the GOP decided to wrap itself in the Christian cloth of morality in hopes of undermining the personal freedoms and personal relationship between an individual choice and their belief system.

How is that related to the war on terror? Does this demonstrate that the Republicans are the party of protecting the American people? Again, no. But as long as the “war on terror” is being fought, the Republicans know that they have a banner to wave that proclaims them as the gladiators that are going to save us all.

In 2004 the GOP pulled out all of the stops and forced the same-sex marriage debate front and center for the general election. The plan was to stir fear that the American family was somehow threatened by two loving people sharing in the same rights (not privileges, but rights) as everyone else. The summer of 2006 started out the same way. The GOP was down in the polls and it needed a boost, so twice the House of Representatives passed bills to amend the Constitution to ensure that same-sex couples never receive any rights at all, and twice the Senate rejected the same initiative. When that didn’t work, the GOP turned to protecting our borders. The President even went before the nation on primetime (something he likes to do for political reasons and seldom out of the collective interest of the citizenry) to spell out his plan for protecting the border with Mexico and to lay out his plans for immigration. But in the spirit of true Republicanism, the House has spent the entire summer touring the country talking about the issue but doing little else. Now there isn’t enough time to act on any legislation, so Congress has delayed the vote until after the election.

How is any of this serving the needs of this country in the war on terror? The Republicans are not about protecting anyone but themselves and their financial supporters. Good people with good common sense and the ability to think critically should remember all of this as they head to the polls in November.

As if on cue, the price of oil is steadily falling. Many bloggers around the country are noting the irony that prices are dropping just in time for the November elections. I believe firmly that there is no such thing as a coincidence.

It is no secret the closeness of the GOP and the oil companies, so there should be little to question. The GOP needed help in this election and turned to their good friends in the oil fields and refineries, it’s as simple as that. It just goes to show how the party in control can remain in control through social engineering at its finest.

In a speech delivered on Friday to the gathering of Christian political operatives at the “Values Voter Summit”, Jerry Falwell said that he hoped Hillary Clinton is the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008. According to the L.A. Times, Falwell says that no other candidate could mobilize the GOP “base” (the neo-conservative religious base) like Clinton. Falwell went on to say that Clinton has a “war chest” of $300 million (a complete exageration, she has $47 million according to recent filings), and that Republicans should be prepared to give until it hurts.

“I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate,” Falwell said, according to the recording. “She has $300 million so far. But I hope she’s the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton.”

Cheers and laughter filled the room as Falwell continued: “If Lucifer ran, he wouldn’t.”

At that moment in the recording, Falwell’s voice is drowned out by hoots of approval. But two in attendance, including a Falwell staff member, confirmed that Falwell said that even Lucifer, the fallen angel synonymous with Satan in Christian theology, would not mobilize his followers as much as the New York senator and former first lady would.

And there it is — the GOP strategy for 2008 and beyond. It is a very simple plan, one that has been in the works for decades — Christians vs. non-Christians (perceived or real). Drawing the connection between someone who has diligently served others to the devil.

And what does Falwell say about the 2006 mid-term elections and the challenges facing Republicans across the country?

Falwell predicted that this year’s midterm elections would go in the GOP’s favor, despite polls showing Democrats in position to make gains.

“I think we’re going to keep the House and the Senate,” he said. “I think the Lord will take care of that.”

I am so sick and tired of hearing someone say that the Lord will do this or that, or has done this or that to punish anyone not aligning themselves with the neo-conservative Kool-Aid brigade. Do people really believe this stuff? I mean, doesn’t the Lord have more important things to worry about than who wins a congressional election?

So I was listening to a recent edition of the DOT show podcast and heard a troubling tale of yet another Republican from Texas that is as arrogant as the day is long. John Carter from the 31st congressional district (essentially his district is north and west of Austin) is reportedly refusing to debate his opponent by saying “I will decide who is worthy of debating me”. Well, curiosity got the best of me and I had to research this fellow a little.

What did I find? Well, just look at the money trail and then decide whether you think this guy is really concerned about Texans and Texas issues. (Thanks to the Center for Responsive Politics for the data!)

Mr. Carter has recevied $585,955 in contributions during the 2005-06 election cycle, with Dell Computer as his single largest contributor with $17,000. During this same period his campaign has spent $440,131.

There is a $2,000 donation to the Round Rock School District, which is a smart move for any politician. But then Carter donates $2,000 each to the “Fitzpatrick for Congress” campaign in Doylestown, PA, the “Max Burns for Congress” camp in Sylvania, GA, and the “Porter for Congress” campaign in Las Vegas, NV. But most troubling is the fact that on January 31, 2006 Carter gave $5,000 to the “Tom DeLay Legal Expense Fund”.

Carter obviously views the needs of local school districts right in his own backyard as equal to the needs of Republican candidates in other states, and way below his need to help defend an indicted criminal that packed his bags and fled the state as soon as he was exposed for the fraud that everyone has known that he is.

(BTW – Carter currently sits on the House Appropriations Committee. Gee, I wonder how much he has appropriated to “education”?)