Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their Party

Lizzy, guiding spirit and guardian angel of Night Bird's Fountain, has been working her heart out for John Hall, the Democratic challenger for the House of Representatives in New York's 19th District.

Hall's running against longtime Republican incumbent, Sue Kelly, and the campaign's been going very well, getting big boosts over the weekend from endorsements by the New York Times and the big local daily, The Times Herald-Record.

Sue Kelly's been doing her bit to help Hall out too.  She seems to be choking under the pressure of having to fight off a serious challenge for her seat.  As Tom Watson reports, she's running scared:

What happened today is priceless - watch the video below and see a Republican Member of Congress literally run away - flee in fear - from the cameras of the local public service television show, and the classic "empty chair" scenario unfold at the local League of Women Voters. I suspect Sue Kelly is running from more than the TV camera - she's running away from George W. Bush, from the war, from the Congressional scandals, from incompetent leadership, from the lies. You want local Republican fear in 2006, a sense of what's happening on the ground? Watch Sue Kelly run.

John Hall deserves to win even more than Kelly deserves to lose, but she does deserve to lose.  She has never represented her district in Congress with as much energy as she has represented first Newt Gingrich and then Tom DeLay and George Bush.

From the Times Herald-Record's editorial endorsing Hall:

Kelly came into Congress a dozen years ago with the Newt Gingrich-led GOP sweep and its famous "Contract With America" that promised reform of how the House of Representatives was run by Democrats. For her part, Kelly reserved the right to pick and choose on the contract, but pledged to work for "a smaller, smarter government which is more accountable to the American people." The GOP-led federal government may be many things, but smaller, smarter and more accountable are not among them. Kelly's sin is not necessarily that her vision has not been realized, but that she almost unfailingly defends what has been delivered instead...

Sad to say, Kelly sounds like too many other Republican candidates this year, trying to defend the indefensible.

What's been delivered is a culture of corruption and a failed war in Iraq and the indefensible is a President who won't admit his mistakes and set out to fix them and a Republican-controlled Congress who lets him get away with everything.

Lizzy has some more good news for Hall.  A poll by Majority Watch shows him leading Kelly by 9 points, 49-40.

The poll was taken before Kelly ran from the cameras.

But there was something very interesting to me in Majority Watch's poll of another House race in New York.  Up in my old stomping grounds, NY-25, Democratic challenger Dan Maffei is leading the up till now seemingly Congressman for life Jim Walsh, 51-43!

Kelly came to Washington as part of the Contract for America crowd.  However moderate she thought she was herself, she was part of Newt's mob of radicals from the get-go.  But Walsh was there long before that and he really was a moderate.  In fact, I voted for him in the first three of his re-election bids after we moved to Syracuse.

Then in 1998 he voted to impeach Bill Clinton.

Newt had him by the short ones from then out and he stopped representing his very blue district---it went big for Bill, big for Hill, big for Gore and Kerry---and became another lackey for the radical Republican Right.  He should have been fired in 2000, but the Democrats up there have had trouble finding a serious challenger and, a lot of voters have had trouble getting their heads around the idea that this was not their father's Republican Party any more.

Times have changed, apparently.

They've changed in NY-20 too.  Republican incumbent John Sweeney trails his Democratic challenger, Kirsten Gillibrand,  41-54.  That's a district just north of where I grew up and all my life, except for the first few years after Watergate, it's been represented by a Republican.

And in NY-24, a seat that's falling vacant due to the retirement of long-standing Republican incumbent Sherwood Boehlert, Democrat Michael Arcuri leads Republican Raymond Meier 52-43.

Then there's NY-26.  Republican incumbent Jim Reynolds is 17 points behind his Democratic challenger, Jack Davis, 39-56.

There's two weeks to go and things can change, of course, but things look good for the Democrats here in New York.

But think about this.  The Democrats need to pick up 15 seats to take control of the House of Representatives and they may get five of those in one state.

I don't know if this means that the Democrats are going to take it all, although it seems that having to find those other 10 seats among the other 49 states makes the odds good in their favor.  But what's happening here makes me surer of something I've been predicting for a while.

The Blue States are about to get a lot bluer.

The Southwestern States and some of the Western ones have been trending blue too.

What I see happening is that the Red is going to get more and more confined to one region of the country, the South.

I don't like the idea of the country being divided along lines that divided in 150 years ago, but there's nothing for it.

There's been some mushmouthed punditry advising the Democrats that, if they do win, they should let bygones be bygones and come into town willing to work with the Republicans who, as we all know, have been so willing to work their Democratic colleagues that they have literally locked them out of meetings to craft legislation.

Digby and Tom have said all that needs to be said on this idea.

But any pundit who wants to tell the Democrats how to continue to surrender even when they hold the majority needs to look at what's happening in New York.

Not that they have been all that moderate since the Right took over the Republican Congress* but several temperamentally moderate legislators are about to leave town, one voluntarily, the others with their tickets punched by their constituents.

After November, Republicans in Congress won't have to fear Karl Rove anymore, and I think it's dawned on just about everybody except for Joe Lieberman and a few pundits like David Broder that George Bush is not only not popular, he is closing in on being universally despised.  Among the third of the country that still say they approve of the job he's doing there are probably an awful lot of people saying it just because they feel stuck with him.

Without having to worry about Rove's muscle or Bush's standing with their constituents---he has none--- Republican moderates in Congress ought to feel freer to reach across the aisle.

Except that they won't be there to do it.

Unless the Democratic win is of historical proportions, the Republicans left in Washington are going to be looking at 2008, or 2010 anyway, as the year they'll get their own back.  They won't be in any mood to roll over and play dead, nor would  there be any reason for them to be.

And if the trend we're seeing here in New York is the trend, then the Democrats are going to win by defeating the Republicans they would have had a chance to work with.

The Republicans who'll still hold their seats will be the true believers and the die-hards.

Since Newt the Republicans in Washington have had a code:  Don't compromise, don't play "fair," treat anyone who didn't vote for you as if they don't exist, deny or ignore the legitimacy of any Democratic victory, never admit defeat.

Again, nothing to be done.  The moderates have to go.

The Right Wingers have to be isolated.

But any pundits who advise the Democrats to go slow, show mercy, offer compromise, and any Democratic legislators who feels like taking that advice need to ask themselves a question.

Just who do you think there's going to be around to compromise with?
__________________________

* Some moderates.  The Drum Major Institute gives Sue Kelly a score of 13 per cent on votes on legislation helping the Middle Class, same score as Sherwood Boehlert.  Jim Walsh has a score of ZERO!

My Congressman, one of the last of the great liberal Democrats, Maurice Hinchey, has a score of 100 per cent.

Comments

[Linkmeister]

As long as you're passing along links like Digby's and Tom's, Susie Madrak has an excerpt of Krugman's latest, and a YouTube video of the Dixie Chicks' attitude towards reaching out across the aisle.

I've got links to 3-for-1 matches for your contributions to Democrats.

[jillbryant]

Karl Rove said tonight he has seen more polls than the rest of us and he knows the Democrats are not going to take it. I would feel it was just more political talk except, at this point, it just sounds like he is trying to prep us for more voter fraud.

[Lance]

Thanks for the links, Link.

Jill,

You never know with Rove. He's a liar by temperament and vocation. I agree that he's likely laying smoke to cover the voter fraud. But even if he were a more honest sort of political operative, this is a situation where he'd need to lie.

The Republicans need a big turn out, they need to keep the money flowing, and they need their marginal candidates to keep fighting. Also, because the Media thinks Rove is a genius and reports whatever he says as gospel, apparently unaware of the self-fulfilling aspect of their own reporting, the tools, lying here does more than rally his own troops. It discourages ours.

If the Democratic money people buy Rove's lies, then they might hold off on dumping money into some of the marginal races. If the Democratic candidates who are behind by a few points or ahead by only a few believe his lies, then they might slow down or give up instead of pushing hard all the way till election day.

At this point, lying is the best strategy.

But if Rove has those polls he should be showing them to the Republicans who feel themselves in trouble and it doesn't sound as if their confidence is rising at all.

Rove's talk of secret polls sets the stage for something else, though. What I'm expecting is that after election days the Republicans will start yelling that they were robbed!

[blue girl]

All that is true, Lance -- but they're so smug and low key about their confidence that it does make you think they know they've got it in the bag.

On the other hand, them saying, "We never had a *stay the course* strategy is pretty desperate. And so completely, mind boggling bizarre to me. Can't stress that enough. Mind. Boggling. Bizarre.

But, just enough people who *want to* buy it just might.

[jillbryant]

Lance -
I guess you're right - lying serves them on many levels. And I do get so tired of the Rove-as-genius talk because not only is there the self-fulfillment reaction you point out but....he must just revel in it. Greed is the over-arching Republican theme sin but I'm betting Vanity runs a close second for Rove.

If the Republicans do start to yell about their polls and being robbed - their voter fraud abilities will be ensured. BTW - I don't even know if there is voter fraud: it seems quite possible/even likely from the evidence, possible from the technology but, idealistic as I am (is that just another word for naive?), I find it almost unimaginable there is that much evil collusion possible without someone's conscience kicking in and breaking it up (not Rove's, of course, I'm not THAT naive.)

The other thing I'm worried about (and I actually try not to think about) is that it WOULD be beneficial for them to have the Democrats control something again so they can slightly more credibly blame them for everything ---- again. Even they must see their clarion Clinton call um - blows by now...(yep, pun intended - why not?) Then 2008 will be theirs again which means McCain or worse.

BG -
I am SO with you. "Mind. Boggling. Bizarre." How stupid do they think we-as-a-nation are? Or, worse, are we-as-a-nation as stupid as they think we are?

[CJColucci]

To a native Syracusan, the prospect that a Walsh could lose would have been unthinkable in the not-too-distant past. A lot has changed since I left -- though you can still get coneys and salt potatoes, and nobody else will know what they are.