The Campaign Beyond Election Day

Yes, the title's a tease. You gotta scroll down to get to the good part.

Well, it wouldn't be good for Republicans, but you get the picture.

Here's a couple of Charlie Rangel quotes to consider for disgruntled conservatives tempted to stay home or even vote for Democrats to "teach the GOP a lesson" and put Rangel at the top of the House Ways & Means Committee (among other catastrophic gavel-changes):

On taking over Ways & Means:

"When I become chairman of the Ways and Means Committee we'll have power over the entire tax system, Social Security system, pension system, Medicare, all of international trade." He says, "I don't have time [to take things incrementally]. I'm 76 years old. I don't have time for a secret agenda. I'm going to move on all these things."

Translation: tax increases (which will slow the economy), guaranteeing the looming entitlements collapse (which will destroy the economy), and full-blown protectionism (which will prevent any subsequent economic recovery). Economic retreat as pell-mell as the foreign policy retreat that will accompany a Democrat victory.

Speaking of which, here's Rangel from The O'Reilly Factor on the detainee bill Congress passed and President Bush signed the other day:

Yes [I voted against the detainee bill]. There's no question in my mind, not only is the bill unconstitutional but was brought up on the eve of an election to give some type of feeling that Republicans were tough on terrorism. We should have those principles that involve habeas corpus that whether you call them combatants or prisoners of war or whatever it is, the standard should be not set by the president, but the standard should be set either by the Geneva Convention(s), the military code of justice.

When Bill O'Reilly pointed out that waterboarding broke Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and yielded invaluable intelligence that prevented several al Qaeda attacks, Rangel retorted:

That's a terrible thing to be able to say that you're proud of. Right now we are creating so much hostility throughout the world that we're creating more terrorists than those people that we - the so-called terrorists that -

O'REILLY: So-called?

RANGEL: We don't know who they are.

Just so there's no misunderstanding, Charlie Rangel is saying that there are no Islamist terrorists, and therefore no true enemy, and therefore no true war, and to the extent that there is we're bringing it all on ourselves by defending ourselves against the enemy he insists does not exist, and accordingly we should lavish constitutional rights and protections upon each and every jihadi we do capture, and we shouldn't capture any of them because they're not our enemy despite the fact they've already killed several thousand of us and vow to butcher us by the millions, and if we do, well, we deserve it because George Bush has made us Nazi facist scum.

Not only does Rangel's extremist Ameriphobic view run counter to 53% of Americans who believe "torture," as currently so loosely defined, is justified where Islamist terrorists are concerned - i.e. despite five years of left-wing hysteria a majority of the public still understands that we're at war - but nearly a third of respondents worldwide endorse "torturing" terrorists under certain circumstances.

This is the kind of men and women that some right-wingers want to put in power to punish their own party for its imperfections. I'm baffled as to what lesson they think that's going to teach other than that the center-right has a politically masochistic streak that this round of self-abuse would raise to a literal deathwish.

Speaking of deathwishes, Rush Limbaugh came up with a scenario yesterday that may be the only remotely plausible one under which John McCain could actually win the 2008 GOP presidential nomination:

Let me tell you about learning a lesson. In two years, you same people who will have helped and bring about an ascension to power by the Democrats are going to be so angry; you're going to be so fed up over what they have tried to do, over the things they will maybe have accomplished, that you are going to demand power back - and you will accept anybody that you think has a chance of winning it.

Right now, that looks like McCain above anybody else - who, I must tell you, is not a conservative - and so what are you probably going to end up doing? You're going to be so frustrated by 2008 and the thought of Hillary Clinton becoming president is so obnoxious, so abhorrent, that in 2008, you will flush your precious principles down the drain and elect a Republican, precisely the kind of Republican you think you're running against now. Or you will at least nominate one. Who knows how that election will go. So the very principle that you are fighting here, if you succeed, you will be given a candidate who fits the very thing you're angry about, somebody who's not conservative enough, but probably has the best chance of winning. [emphases added]

How quickly they forget that winning part. How quickly they forget the 2000 campaign, when Republicans were so desperate to wrest the White House back after the interminable Clinton detour that they blithely ignored George Bush's unconcealed moderation on most fiscal and domestic policy issues. And how spoiled they've become that they think that legislative majorities are things that can be sloughed off and put back on like a coat in a closet. Remember how long the last House drought lasted, keeds? Do a little historical research and then decide again if you want to tempt fate with the lives of millions of Americans at stake.

At the very least, pissing away control of Congress and setting up a McCain nomination two years from now would not only forfeit the country to the NeoBolshevik Left, but it would also concede the Republican Party to the self-same squishes some tightie-righties are so hot to "punish." When the smoke cleared, the conservative movement would be not only without power, but without even a viable vehicle for regaining it.

Might just as well exhume the remains of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan and Fed-Ex them to the DNC for ritual desecration and be done with it.

But let's be optimistic and suppose that my up-to-date numbers are correct and the GOP narrowly holds the Senate and the House. The margin in the latter would be five seats (220-215). Think that would be the end of it?

Guess again, Riddler:

I think it is very likely that we will not know whether Republicans or Democrats will organize the House until the vote for Speaker is taken sometime in the early afternoon of January 3, 2007....

Let us assume that...the GOP holds its losses to twelve seats....That assumes that every one of the 435 individual elections produce clear winners on election night.

Ain't gonna happen.

There will be a minimum of four and perhaps as many as eight or nine recounts. And because so much is at stake, every close election will be fought to the fourth corner of the last hanging chad of the final contested ballot....It is very possible that the number of recounts will exceed the margin either party has as we move through November and into December.

But wait! There's more!

Even after the recounts are resolved there might not be more than two or three seats separating the two parties. If that is the case, then there will be heavy, heavy horse trading to get Members to switch parties.

Assume the GOP has a two-seat edge after all is said and done from election day and the recounts. The Democrats will go sifting through the small list of moderate Republicans and offer huge bounties to switch parties. Switching parties is accomplished by simply announcing you are now joining the other guys and walking across the aisle.

The proof of the pudding on January 3 is whether one votes for the Republican or Democratic candidate for Speaker. [emphasis added]

Think the Democrats wouldn't relish screwing the Republicans out of control of the House of Representatives in order to give themselves the power to impeach the President they insist "stole" the White House from Al Gore six years ago?

Remember one of Hugh Hewitt's catch-phrases: "If it's not close, they can't cheat." The least the center-right can do under the circumstances is make cheating the Left's only option.