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Friday, November 04, 2005

PMD

The Moose contemplates a new political order that may emerge out of chaos.

This week the Politics of Mass Destruction have been released. And chaos is the Moose's friend. The White House is in complete disarray - the West Wing is resembling the Sunni Triangle. Bushie is turning on Bushie. Rove will probably go Rovian on his colleagues.

Nasty internal White House politics may make the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary look like an election of the officers of the League of Women Voters. Expect the conflict between the Bush Kennebunkport clan and the Bush Crawford clan to intensify.

The blinding brilliance of Rovian pandering to the base has sent the President's popularity down into the Jimmy Carter 30's. The corruption of the Congressional Republicans have sent their favorability down to a range that is lower than many serial killers.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are in a full throated Dean scream. The Bushies' woes are too inviting. It is only a matter of time that some lefties make the argument that the White House has manufactured the Avian flu threat to profit the drug industry. Bush rage is the primary motivating force for the donkey. Someone should tell them that Bush can't run for re-election.

Now, of course, the Vast Moose Conspiracy did not manufacture the PMD which is resulting in the Republicans imploding in ineptitude while Democrats are exploding in an Tourettes-like rage. Could the American people look for an independent alternative to this unlovely political mudfest, and a modern reincarnation of the Bull Moose emerge in 2008?

Not necessarily. However, it is quite possible that both parties will field candidates who challenge the prevailing polarizing partisan dynamic in American politics. There is more ample room for a progressive independent force to emerge in both parties.

The Rove-Hanna-plutocratic model is increasingly vulnerable in the GOP.

Jacob Weisberg writes in Slate,

"Of course, the failure of Rove's realignment doesn't mean a new progressive era is at hand. After winning the White House back in 1896, Republicans held on to it until 1912, years after McKinley had succumbed to an assassin's bullet and Hanna had died of typhoid fever. But Republicans retained the presidency on a basis that Hanna never anticipated. Theodore Roosevelt, a man Hanna feared and tried unsuccessfully to keep off the GOP ticket in 1900, was sworn in when McKinley died in 1901. Roosevelt emerged as a reformer and a trustbuster, taking on the corporate interests that had underwritten his predecessor's career. The GOP retained power, but only by reversing the pro-business direction Hanna had set.

"Like McKinley, Bush has a potential successor who would like to change his party's direction. John McCain spouts reform and idolizes Teddy Roosevelt. And oh yes-he and Karl Rove loathe each other."

In the Democratic Party, an outsider could very well emerge who promises a new type of bi-partisan politics that is not driven by rage but instead by bringing the country together around a reform and progressive message. More on that later.

Unlike Saddam's WMD, we have found the domestic PMD and it may re-arrange our politics in unexpected ways. This is going to be interesting!
-- Posted at 8:20 AM | Link to this post | Email this post