Laugh at Liberals

A TALE OF TWO ELECTIONS

The official Iraqi Election Results are in! Democracy Wins! The DNC Election results are in…Democrats lose! Let’s take a look at what happened and postulate on what to expect down the road.

The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq announced that the Shiite-backed United Iraqi Alliance won 48% of the vote. That’s a plurality but well short of an outright majority. Turnout was 58 percent Of about 8.56 million votes cast in the election, the UIA received 4.08 million, the combined Kurdish parties garnered 2.17 million and the Iraqi list of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi got 1.17 million. Those numbers would give the UIA about 130 seats on Iraq’s 275-seat National Assembly, the Kurds about 70 seats, and the Iraqi list about 40 seats. Since its going to take at least 150 votes in the National Assembly to pass any policy legislation, it would appear as though real debate, deal making and coalition building is in the immediate future.

In the DNC election, Howard Dean was declared the winner and the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In a speech to supporters Dean said, ” YYEAHAGGRRRGGEEYAHAHEAAA!” I don’t think this is such a bad thing for the DNC (snicker, snicker) No, really! But only if Dean can bring his fund raising magic to the post. Essentially, all the DNC chairman does is raise money and let’s face it, American politics is about money. The more you’ve got, especially the grass roots variety, the more successful you can be. But that is also where the Dean factor can be a bad thing for the DNC. The grass roots that backed Dean financially are so out of step with main stream America, and reality, that their financial force may steer the party even further away from where it needs to be. I don’t think that is a good thing. Healthy debate is just that, healthy. It keeps idea’s sharp and keeps the players focused on winning, by improving their ideas and policies to meet the needs of the people. A weak Democratic party could create a complacent Republican party and agenda. Good ideas withstand debate. If there is no challenge to test an idea, how do you know it’s worth.

In Iraq, money doesn’t mean anything, right now. The election has opened the door to democracy and these newly elected leaders must set about the serious work of debating ideas, principles and law. Fortunatly for Howard Dean, money is the most important thing to the Democrats, right now. That’s the only reason he is the new head of the DNC. He can bring the bucks. It’s too bad that the Democrats are still ignoring the ideas. The next few years should be interesting.

I’ve said before that the Democratic party is going the way of the DoDo bird because of it’s own self-destruction. I still think that’s the case, but if Dean can raise enough money, they still might last through the 2008 elections. However, if they don’t bring some new ideas and fresh faces to the national stage, they’ll get trounced, again.