The word from Massachusetts after the republicans won the Senate seat that had to be filled is that Obama was not watching his backside. When riding the bubble of popularity that brought him to power, it is a slippery slope in all directions. Overconfident and complacent, the party officers, who should have been watching on the backside, let him down. The massive amounts of money spent by the republicans in the last few weeks were obviously not expected. The voting shift happened so suddenly that the state’s democratic organizers were caught off guard. You can only bitch a bit, bleed a bit and, hopefully, get smarter.
And it is certainly irrefutable that American republicans are the very best at lying, cheating and stealing when it comes to winning elections. Massachusetts was trying to replace the late Ted Kennedy as Senator. To replace him with a playboy republican who drives a truck is not just an insult to the late Senator’s memory but an abomination.
But the guy whom it really spells trouble for is the President. Ted Kennedy was that key sixtieth democrat in the Senate that made sure democratic bills could be passed. Obama’s health care legislation is now at the mercy of republican filibusters and other stalling tactics. Sure, Obama can buy the republican votes he needs but at what cost?
Our American friends can end up with the same congressional impasse that stopped Clinton from solving America’s health care problems. The Clinton presidency became meaningless after a while as he lost his battles with Congress. And Obama’s rhetoric will be wasted in the corrupt cauldron of American politics.
The crux will be in the mid-term elections of November 2010. The hounding, slander and libel of Obama will hit its zenith in an all out effort by the republicans to deprive the president of the majorities he needs in both houses. With a third of the Senate up for election, the republicans can target the states they want and pour massive resources into them while the democrats have to defend on a much broader front.
And how do you defend against populist slander that the president is a communist and an elitist, a dictator and lackey, an unreconstructed northerner who, maybe, was not born in the U.S.A. (and therefore not eligible to be President) and besides, he is black and therefore a threat to the purity of all white women? Most democrats and liberals are dumbfounded by the audacity of such bilge. To even repeat the garbage is to give credence to ignorant bigots. How do you fight it? You cannot because the bigger the lie, the easier it rolls off the tongue of the fool.
So far, President Obama has been careful picking his fights. This year is only beginning but we can already see the battle lines as the South rises again.
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