AT THE SOUND OF THE BELL: GOP ISN'T EXACTLY DISINTEGRATING... BUT... CLOSE

While the GOP acclimates itself to the electoral devastation headed their way in 2008-- and puts all its hopes on nurturing future shit-eating candidate General BetrayUs-- GOP members of Congress are doing all they can to minimize the damage to their own careers. Voters are so thoroughly disgusted with Bush's Iraq escalation that respectable Republican senators who have abdicated any semblance of oversight for the past 7 years-- like Richard Lugar, Jon Warner and George Voinovich-- are now calling for Bush to forget his grand designs for making Iraq into an American puppet state. The new CBS poll out today shows 77% of Americans think the war is going badly.

And near universal disgust with Bush, Cheney, their disastrous regime and it's catastrophic policies and venal agenda aren't the only things that bode ill for the Republicans at the polls next year. Even Republican voters have had enough! The Republican Party crafted themselves a brain dead, zombie-like base, incapable of independent thought and Pavlovian in it's response to the dog whistles from Hate Talk Radio and Fox-TV-- commercial enterprises catering to the lowest-information groups and most bigoted people in the country. And now Republican politicians, who were all too willing to feed that tiger are realizing that they're the next meal. The work they did on Bush's failed immigration legislation is killing McCain's presidential hopes and wrecking Lindsey Graham's hopes for re-election to the Senate. If not for the fact that the Bush Regime had the FBI arrest the far right Republican who was opposing Graham, South Carolina Treasurer Tom Ravenel, for selling cocaine, Graham would have had virtually no chance of even winning the GOP nomination. Now Republicans in South Carolina are trying to make a deal to support a Blue Dog Democrat just to teach Graham and other Republican hacks a lesson. Only 31% of South Carolina voters approve of Graham's job performance. And fewer Republicans like him than Democrats!

And the harder the "Amnesty Republicans" fight back, the more the base turns against them. Almost all the rubber stamp senators facing re-election, who supported Bush on everything and who have been supportive of the immigration bill-- from Saxby Chamberpot (GA) on the extreme right to the quartet of fake moderates Coleman (MN), Collins (ME), Smith (OR) & Sununu (NH)-- abandoned Bush at the last minute and bowed to the intense, searing pressure from the dominant Know Nothing wing of the party. Yesterday the GOP's hapless chairman, Florida Senator Mel Martinez, was still defending the failed immigration legislation. He's very lucky he isn't up for re-election next year, but his carping on the issue is ruining the chances for other Republicans to recover from the calamity. He's still calling the Republican base "the voices of negativity." They don't like that and Martinez' approval ratings in Florida are even worse than Graham's and almost as bad as Cheney's! Only 23% of Florida voters think Martinez is doing a good job. I've seen indicted Republican congressmen on their way to prison with higher approval ratings.

Today is the last day of the quarter, a time period Inside the Beltway hacks and pundits look at to figure out who is a serious candidate and who isn't. So if you're thinking about helping out some progressive candidates, today would be a good day. All of our candidates are on our Blue America page and I'd like to especially point out a number of incumbents who have been very steady and unflinching in their support for all of our values and ideals, especially Steve Cohen (TN), Carol Shea-Porter (NH), Tom Allen (ME), Jerry Nadler (NY), John Hall (NY), and Hilda Solis (CA). They deserve our appreciation. Also very much deserving our appreciation are real fighters who came close to beating Republican jerks in 2006 and who are going for it again, especially Angie Paccione (CO), Victoria Wulsin (OH), Eric Massa (NY), John Laesch (IL), Charlie Brown (CA), Darcy Burner (WA) and Donna Edwards (MD), whose opponent is a Liebermanlike fake Democrat and, I'm happy to announce, will be our Blue America guest next Saturday at 2pm, EST.