The Definition of a Democratic Moderate?
According to this DFL.org article, the definition of a Democratic moderate is someone who welcomes illegal aliens onto her GOTV team. Let’s see what the article says:
Republicans have outspent Democrats on a massive scale but still, every pollster says the race is a dead heat between staunchly conservative Brian Bilbray, who’s so conservative that he has insulted the Republican-controlled Senate and President Bush for not being conservative enough, and school board member and moderate Democrat Francine Busby, who won the primary and was only 6% short of stopping a runoff election. Busby ran against Cunningham in 2004, but lost with a strong showing.
Kyle Potter is the person who wrote this post yesterday for DFL.org. To say that this is pure propaganda is understatement. What makes this even more laughable is that the DFL is extrapolating this to the Bachmann race. Here’s how they’re doing that:
The 6th Congressional District race here in Minnesota, like the California 50th, is in a dense Republican district, the stomping grounds of Mark Kennedy; there isn’t an incumbent running; and the race pits the staunchly conservative Michelle Bachmann, who’s so conservative that she tied up the Senate last year with an anti-gay marriage amendment that almost single-handedly destroyed the bonding bill, against the child safety advocate and moderate DFLer Patty Wetterling. Wetterling ran against Kennedy in 2004, but lost after a surprisingly strong showing.
There’s a problem with the characterization that CA-50 is “a dense Republican district.” In 2004, Duke Cunningham beat someone named Francine Busby 58 percent-42 percent. That’s before the Cunningham scandal was on the radar.
Let’s also disabuse ourselves that MN CD-6 is “heavily conservative” to the extent that a Democrat shouldn’t even have a chance. That’s what Mr. Potter is implying.
I’m enjoying Democrats characterizing Michele Bachmann as some ultra-conservative right wing kook. Potter’s doing it here. My state senator, Tarryl Clark, called Michele “a devil in a blue dress.” When people get to meet her, that image will be blown to smithereens.
Let’s also disabuse ourselves of the notion that Patty Wetterling is a moderate, too. After all, she’s the person who’s advocating the removal of all US troops from Iraq by Thanksgiving, 2006. We laughed at Murtha’s “immediate redeployment” proposal. We laughed at John Kerry’s and Barb Boxer’s demand for a timeline. How is Wetterling’s proposal not deemed unserious, too?
(By the way, did you know that John Kerry served in Vietnam?)
Technorati Tags: CA-50, Brian Billbray, Duke Cunningham, Francine Busby, Michele Bachmann, Tarryl Clark
Cross-post at LetFreedomRingBlog
June 7th, 2006 at 10:01 am
[...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: Liberals, Midterm Elections, House of Representatives, Conservatism | [...]
June 7th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
A moderate is anyone whose orbit is somewhere inside that of Saturn.
An ultraconservative kook is anyone with enough guts to call McCan’t a liberal.
And a heavily conservative district is one with a 50% + 1 percentage of registered Republicans.
Now, remember, kiddies, Republicans come in all stripes, from Giuliani to ultras. That means that the 50% + 1 will include those who vote a straight donkey ticket and have since Harry Truman first won.
Donkeys (with a couple of notable exceptions) start somewhere in left field and go to the farthest reaches of the unknown universe.
With that level playing field of semantics, it’s no wonder anyone running against a moonbat is an “ultraconservative.”