Accidental Blogger

Less than a week before the midterm elections, with everything going in their favor, the Democrats might mess things up again.  It will be an amazing feat . But the bumbling Dems, with their uncanny ability to keel over before capricious lies and smears (a special talent of Republicans), might find themselves caught flat footed once more. It is a bit like this – funny and sad, but one expects it.

Take for example the latest brouhaha about the joke that John Kerry flubbed. For almost forty eight hours now, we have heard about John Kerry insulting our "brave men and women in uniform" when in reality, what Kerry attempted to do was to insult our not so brave president.

Here is what Kerry meant to say to a group of students in California: "Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy?" Kerry was to say. "You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."

This is what he did say: "Education — if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well.  If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."

The fact that his statement came just after he had said that "Bush once lived in Texas but now lives in a state of denial," leaves no doubt as to where Kerry wanted to go with his punch line. But he garbled it and now he has become the punching bag for gleeful right wingers.  Bush, Cheney, Tony Snow, Rush Limbaugh (who must be relieved to see the Michael J. Fox story move out of the headlines) and even the beleaguered Hastert have come out swinging to pummel Kerry for his supposedly elitist put down. The corrupt war in Iraq and the violation of national trust by Republicans have taken a backseat to this poor joke. Even his own party has demanded that Kerry apologize so that Republicans can no longer flog this non-issue right up to election day. This time Kerry has "swift boated" himself. The question is whether he has also swift boated the chances of a Democratic gain in the elections. I doubt it but one never knows.

Here in my own district, not exactly a bastion of Democratic political power, things may not go as well as I had hoped a few months ago when Tom DeLay bowed out in disgrace. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, the Republican write-in candidate has almost caught up with Nick Lampson, her much more experienced Democratic opponent who has a better name recognition and an impressive war chest. Why?  Because while Lampson, a very nice man, has been telling his feel good life story mostly to an already converted Democratic base, Sekula-Gibbs has flooded the air waves, TV, phone lines and mail boxes with positive literature about herself and negative ones about Lampson. Lampson has not been seen on TV or anywhere else for that matter.  Once again, a competent Democratic politician, rather than take the initiative in defining the corrupt legacy of the terrible Mr. DeLay, has allowed a clever Republican machinery to define him in sleazy terms.

Houston also happens to be a city where conservative businessman enrich themselves by employing undocumented immigrant workers in booming businesses ranging from construction work to  landscaping, restaurants and janitorial work. In turn they fill the campaign coffers of Republican politicians in Texas and nationwide. But see what is posted in front of an early voting location in my neighborhood.

Can the Democrats work up enough presence of mind and discipline to torch the straw man of Republican dirty politics?  I am not holding my breath.