(Isn't it a sad commentary that so few people are noting how the gerrymandering that makes most districts non-competitive also helps to make this kind of terrible GOP Party as we see these days so powerful. They don't really have to care very much what people outside their base --whom they can manipulate-- think of them. It is the few who really have to run for election who are less willing to be completely subservient to their gangster Bushite bosses, or at least who need to appear to be less obedient to the Rove/Bush/Delay commands that come down.)
Anyway, our district is one of those in which it will be determined which party will control the House of Representatives.
My interlocutor declared, "I don't like so-and-so," naming the Democratic candidate, and going off into various negative characterizations of her.
"It doesn't matter all that much who the Democratic candidate. She could be Daisy Duck, or Mickey's dog Pluto, and it would still be important to vote for her. What is at stake in this election is far less the specifics of any particular office-holder than it is which party will be a majority in the House-- because that could be the difference between our being able to stop this presidency, that's dismantling our constitutional democracy, and our continuing to have a Congress that is simply his accomplice.
"Rarely in American history have our responsibilities as citizens been so compelling as now."
[Consider the above in the light of this report from Ryan Lizza about how the White House pressured Foley to run for re-election in the House, which Foley evidently did not want to do.]
According to the source, Foley said he was being pressured by "the White House and Rove gang," who insisted that Foley run. If he didn't, Foley was told, it might impact his lobbying career.
"He said, 'The White House made it very clear I have to run,'" explains Foley's friend, adding that Foley told him that the White House promised that if Foley served for two more years it would "enhance his success" as a lobbyist. "I said, 'I thought you wanted out of this?' And he said, 'I do, but they're scared of losing the House and the thought of two years of Congressional hearings, so I have two more years of duty.'"
If the White House takes so seriously the danger to them from losing control of the House --"they're scared of losing the House and the thought of two years of Congressional hearings"-- then so should all of us who oppose this Bushite stay in the Offal Office.
