More to come

This blog has sure been quiet the past month, I hope this means everyone has had a happy and safe holiday season, filled with friends and family memories. But now the real work of cleaning up after the Bush Administration begins.

Yesterday, Bill Richardson withdrew his nomination for Secretary of Commerce amid a grand jury investigation. James Carville over on Newsmax predicts a streak of Democratic scandals. Carville points out it is simple math: More Democrats in elected office increases the likelihood of scandal.

The difference needs to be in how the scandals are handled. So far, the Democrats seem to understand this. John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, now Bill RIchardson; with the exception of Governor Blagojevich, and William Jefferson, most Democrats caught with their pants down or their hands in the till quickly remove themselves from the public eye.

When they don't, it is the Democratic leadership that puts pressure on them to step down. William Jefferson was stripped of his committee memberships by his own party, Democrats are leading the resistance to seating Blagojevich's Senate nominee.

Defending Tom Delay, Trent Lott, Larry Craig, and Ted Stevens cost the Republicans dearly in the court of public opinion. The party must be like Caesar's wife; beyond reproach. Like the military academies, you don't lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do.

Another of Carville's predictions was especially interesting:

A "near catastrophic ideological rift" in the Republican Party. "There is no obvious Republican leader on the horizon, and the party is caught between its Southern/talk-radio base and the rest of the country on whether they should oppose or cooperate with [Barack] Obama's administration. The combination of the lack of an obvious leader and the general political combustibility of the Republican Party will lead to a dangerous fissure that will plague it until the 2012 election cycle."

I have another name for the southern/talk radio base; I call them "the proudly ignorant," and the alliance between them and the fiscal conservative wing of the Republican arty has always been uneasy.

Perhaps nowhere could the rift be seen more clearly than last year's Republican Convention. It was like watching a schizophrenic relative; John McCain could have been anybody's doting grandfather, then Sarah Palin's lunatic rants. You never knew which Republican party you would get on any given day. I have Republican friends who voted Obama because the concept of President Palin scared the hell out of them. They have sown the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind as the crazies demand a place at the table.

Right now, the Republicans are in the same position the Democrats were after 2000 and 2004, in danger of becoming a minor, regional party.

This is no time for complacency. As Republicans found out in 2006 and 2008, there is no such thing as a "permanent majority." By recognizing the problem, they have already started to regroup. They realize the tried and true formula of turning out the religious right and the racist voting blocs, plus a little voter suppression doesn't work anymore. Demographics overwhelmed them. Look or them to start hiding the crazier elements, and an appeal to moderate, thinking people.

The best thing Democrats can do now is govern effectively, get some programs that help Americans passed through, and cut out the Cancer of scandal from among themselves before it becomes inoperable.

Happy 2009 Everyone.