Stop Whinning Already!

I've been away for the last week and only now have had time to digest the results of the convention. All I can say is "oh man, this is awesome!" Bush comes out of the convention with a 10+ point lead in some polls although I try not to get too happy about these since they seem to have oversampled Republicans without appropriate weighting for the oversample. At the same time, Kerry just seemed to implode with his midnight speech and his followups since then. As Robert Novak has been pointing out lately, Bush's best attribute seems to be Kerry... Things are looking good for Bush but at this point nobody should be getting too excited or too depressed since the 1st debate is about 3 weeks away.

What has surprised me is the shrill level of the Democratic attacks against the Republicans. Can't they come up with anything else other than the Republicans are somehow questioning their patriotism whenever they question Kerry's judgement. I thought questioning the other side's point of view was a core part of electioneering. Don't the Demmies realize their "shock" just comes across as whinny? Especially in contrast to how Bush took all the attacks calling him a liar, comparing him to Hitler (I just Googled Hitler and Bush and got 608,000 hits - yikes, that says something), etc. Don't the Democrats know that turning the other cheek to attacks traditionally comes across as far more appealing? Take the attacks, rebut and then go on your own attack. Don't sit there and screech about how the other side is not playing fair. Outside the Beltway blogged about the way "both sides always think their side is being too nice and letting the other side get away with mudslinging". Read the full post - good comments.

Another thing that I was struck with was the level of moderates at the Republican convention and what this may pressage for the Democratic party over the next decade. Forget about Arnold and Rudy and McCain. Why isn't anyone talking about Ron Silver? Still an extremely proud liberal on social issues, he feels strongly enough about the war on terror to speak at the Republican convention. I think he is an indicator of the many people out there, like myself, who have traditionally been liberal or moderate who are finding a place in this election to vote Republican and who have very strong feelings about their support. This may just be a one time event, but I think the Democrats need to get their heads out of their ass before this election turns into another Reagan Democrat momment and we see an electoral shift that lasts a generation. If Bush wins and executes on half of the domestic promises he made at the convention it will be hard to imagine the Republican tent not becomming even larger.

PS - on a side note, why is it that comming out of the conventions, it was President Bush who espoused the bolder more imaginative domestic vision? Aren't domestic issues supposed to be Democratic owned territory? I'll see the Democratic Clinton triangulation of the 90s and raise them with a Bush traingulation of my own.