RUBBER STAMP REPUBLICANS TRYING TO BOUNCE AWAY FROM BUSH... AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

The other day Karl Rove told a group of Washington reporters, with his usual dependable candor, that George Bush has so many invitations from candidates who want him to speak, that there aren't enough days between now and the election to fulfill them all. That's the same Karl Rove who claims he didn't expose the identity of a covert CIA agent.

Today's Washington Post has a front page story titled For GOP, Bad Gets Worse in Northeast that seems to belie that assertion. "When it comes to President Bush and the Republican Congress, Rep. Jim Gerlach says voters in his suburban Philadelphia district are in a 'sour mood.' That's why when it comes to his reelection, the two-term incumbent says 'the name of the game' is to convince those same voters that he can be independent of his own party. He has turned his standard line about Bush-- 'When I think he's wrong, I let him know'-- into a virtual campaign slogan, repeated in interviews and TV ads. 'It is a combination of things, from the war in Iraq to gas prices to what they are experiencing in their local areas,' Gerlach said of the surly electorate whose decision he will know on Nov. 7.

The problem for Gerlach, of course, is that he has been an utter rubber stamp for all the very same problems his constituents are pissed off about. Gerlach whimpers that House Republicans should "do more to put forward an agenda on health care, education and the environment." His party laughs in his face. One Capitol Hill staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, says "Gerlach is the second biggest pussy-boy in the whole caucus (after Robin Hayes). Leadership knows when they need him they don't have to say boo twice." And with Bush's approval rating having sunk to 28% in the northeast, Connecticut rubber stamper Rob Simmons (R-CT) is in the same exact situation. His constituents are made as hell about Bush and Bush's agenda-- an agenda Simmons voted for for the last five and a half years. Simmons' seat "is the most Democratic-leaning district in the country still held by a Republican. 'My friend calls me Salmon Simmons... because I am always swimming upstream' against a Democratic current, he said."

Those Republicans are so damned witty; they must have so much fun on Saturday nights when they're not gutting Social Security and Medicare, not figuring out how to play little tricks funny-named tricks on senior citizens, like "don't fall through the doughnut hole," and not justifying torture and mass killings of civilians collateral damage.


But, as the Post points out, if Connecticut voters were unhappy with Lieberman-- who only voted for most of Bush's priorities, just wait to they figure out that Salmonella voted for all of them. The Post also points out the faltering campaigns of 4 other Republican rubber stamp Stepfordites: Michael Fitzpatrick, and Curt Weldon (whose ethics problems are even worse than his Bush problems) in Pennsylvania, and Nancy Johnson and Christopher Shays in Connecticut. Our own calculations are even more upbeat since we see quite a few other endangered rubber stamp Republicans in the Northeast, including Sue Kelly, Peter King, John Sweeney and Randy Kuhl in New York; Mike Ferguson in New Jersey; Phil English in PA; and Charlie Bass and possibly Jeb Bradley in New Hampshire.


UPDATE: LOOKS BAD FOR THE REPUGLIES IN THE MIDWEST TOO

At least that's what David Broder is saying in Thursday's Washington Post. He's predicting a complete slaughter for arch-Republicrook and loon Ken Blackwell in Ohio-- although this will be the ultimate test of Stalin's dictum about whocounts the votes being way more consequential than who casts them. He say's Ohio looks like a "political earthquake"-- and it doesn't stop there. "What I heard here-- and in subsequent interviews at the National Governors Association convention in Charleston, S.C.-- from one Republican after another signaled serious trouble for the GOP across a broad swath of states from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma in key midterm election contests for House, Senate and governor."