Caption French President Sarkozy with President Bush

me

[Michael81Dus]

French President Sarkozy with President Bush at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm/Germany.

[Michael81Dus]

You´re right that there are several reasons for the likely (?) defeat in 2008, but one of them surely will be Iraq. Of course, the Democrats realized that an immediate withdrawal would be a political and military disaster for the US - AND Iraq.

Here, we can only hope that we´ll get a coalition with the FDP after the next election. Merkel ranks top in the approval ratings of politicians, but it doesn´t help her/my party much. With the “new Left”-Commies advancing, the SPD is struggling between the CDU on the right side and the Commies on the left. The SPD loses voters - they reap what they sowed, when they had no problems to accept the Commies as “valid, democratic partners” in the state governments of Berlin and Mecklenburg-Pomerania.

Let´s see what Merkel can reach at the end of the week at her EU-summit. She was promoted to “Miss World” by BILD after G8, maybe she gets the “Miss Europe” title, too!?

We´ll talk later!

[Red6]

No-

Iraq is more negative in Germany and seen differently by the Germans. It’s a bigger deal for you to support the war than it is for a politician over here. The Senator I helped in the 2006 elections is an open and strong supporter of the war (Sam Johnson) and he was reelected without any problems. Some CNN poll that asks questions like “Do you want to see American soldiers dying in Iraq?” will of course get a majority saying “No”. These polls are trash, just like most things written in Der Spiegel.

Iraq is not the rope that will hang the Republican Party, McCain or Giuliani are. If either of these candidates are on the Republican ticket in 2008 for the Presidency the Republican party will loose. They are uninspiring to the base. Giuliani is not even seen as conservative. Truthfully he isn’t! Many who are more libertarian will vote independent with either candidate. Worse yet if as in 1992 you get a fairly powerful independent like Ross Perot who takes 19% of the votes, majority from the Republican party, and this too is a viable possibility still.

http://www.vote-smart.org/election_president_search.php?type=alpha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot

Do you realize that most of the Democrats elected in 2006 were “Blue dogs”? They are Democrats that “support” the war or at least want to see victory there. The Democrats control the Senate and House, and despite all the rhetoric, nothing has happened and the war is funded. Those Democrats that were elected were so largely on a more conservative platform. These elections are won locally, not nationally.

Examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanford_Bishop (Democrat – pro war)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Boyd (Democrat- pro war)

What the Republicans are trying to do is pander to a 14.5% voting block that considers itself Hispanic. While trying to hold on to the Hispanic voter (A minority group among Republicans actually do fairly well) they are alienating their own base. The number one issue that will hurt the GOP is the boarder and illegal alien amnesty plan. Imagine a President referring to private citizens that on their own time, and own money, travel to the boarder regions to enforce a boarder the federal government is failing to do as “Vigilantes”. Imagine Bush basically saying that those who oppose his amnesty plan are racist and stupid. Of course he said this in a political and nicer way. The boarder issue will hurt the GOP. It already is!

What happened in the last elections was that right before the elections the Foley scandal created lots of negative publicity, Teri Scheivo was a case where the executive branch could have intervened but didn’t……. All data was suggesting that the Senate would stay under Republican control, that’s why Rumsfeld stayed on until after the elections. He would have stayed had the Senate held, and had the GOP thought they would loose the Senate he would have stepped down earlier since this would have helped the party. But it was the scandals right before that helped drive the outcome in 2006. Even so, the Democrats won by putting up blue dogs and only won with a 1 seat majority in the Senate and small majority in the house.

The Republicans are not listening to their base. They hear the screams, but hearing is not listening. They will pay, and when they do, they will blame Iraq, but Iraq is not their rope.