Anyone find it odd that Gingrinch is using a core Republican agenda item (privatizing social security) to attack Mondale?
Not really. The strategy is to make him look more like a Republican than Wellstone in hopes of swaying moderates away from Mondale. It's stupid...but it's a strategy.
The strategy is to make him look more like a Republican than Wellstone in hopes of swaying moderates away from Mondale. But sway them where? To the real Republican? If people are scared off of Mondale because he has Republican views, how would that lead them to vote for a true Republican? It sounded to me more like he's demonizing both raising the SS Age and privatizing SS: <I>if you want to raise your retirement age dramatically and privatize Social Security, Walter Mondale is a terrifically courageous guy to say that.</I> I guess he could be trying to sway them to simply not vote, but making Mondale seem more centrist (having some conservative views) doesn't seem like it would help any.
People, people! Read the article: "With Election Day a little more than a week away, supporting privatization could be seen as a strong argument against Mondale given that it might damper enthusiasm from liberals - Wellstone's base. And, Gingrich was not the only one pursuing the line of attack on Sunday. Romesh Ponnuru, a writer for the conservative National Review, said on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer: "[Mondale] is a major advocate of President Bush's position on Social Security, which is something that I think, once it becomes more public, is going to alienate Wellstone Democrats."
By the way, this is probably the first time in his life Mondale's enemies are saying he's not liberal enough!
"Ronald Reagan is 76 and he has access to the button. My grandfather's 76 and we don't let him use the remote control for the television." - Dennis Miller
Oh yeah? Well, um... FDR won four elections. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Besides, Mondale's not running a national campaign this time. He's running against some guy named Norm in a place where he got most of those electoral votes. (I should say "may be running.") I still like the idea of Alan Page. GOP Chickenhawk: "You Dems are a bunch of wimps!" Alan Page: "Pardon me?" GOP Chickenhawk: "Uh, nothing Mr. Page. I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were in the chamber. Say, can I have your autograph?"
Isn't it just really a pathetic commentary about our electoral system when they have to roll out some icon to keep up name recognition than to roll out Wellstone's "favorite son" to carry on his torch.
Really, giddyup, I think timing as a lot do with this. If this unfortunate tragedy happened in August, you probably would've seen a different candidate. However, being 11 days before the election, the Democrats had to pick someone who had a great chance to win.
Oh, I know it's practical but that practicality bespeaks weakness. This is not just a knock on the Dems but rather on the shallowness of our electoral system. SIDENOTE: When I lived in Austin in 1974, Alan Page lived in our apartment complex on Rio Grande.
Whatever it takes to keep GWB from getting his rubber-stamp Congress, I'm all for. Well, not all for. Come on, Mondale, win, you old fart.
You can rest assured if the same situation happened in Kansas the Republicans would dust off that ole Viagra pimp. Oh wait, they kind of did that, they got and fully supported (provided national "top down" support) Liddy Dole, someone who I don't think had ever won an election--certainly she had not run in the state she was now running as Senator over home grown guys with local ties and good party faithfuls because they thought (and they are probably right) she would be their lead horse (no pun intended). The national party also messed with NH to get their not so popular incumbant defeated in the primary to maximize their election chances with another who "jumped out of turn". This is politics folks.
