Dowbrigade

It is hard to imagine on which issues the Republicans are going to
base President Bush’s reelection bid. Polls show that his support on
the War in Iraq, the one area where until recently he had a decided edge
over Kerry, has eroded to the point that the candidates are dead even
when the public is asked who has the better policy on the war.

It will be difficult to base the push on the economy, as despite the
prestidigitation and creative accounting of the Bureau
of Labor Statistics,
it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the charade that inflation
is still creeping along at a 3% rate.  Anyone with half a brain
who does their own shopping knows what is happening to prices in this
county. As more and more of the dwindling middle class work longer hours
and cut
expenses
just
to
stay
in the middle,
and the bottom third of the population find it is almost impossible
to rise out of poverty, the Bush mantra of cutting taxes for the rich
rings
increasingly cruel and cynical.

The Republicans will have trouble as well if they want to compare the
track record of their candidate to that of his opponent.  Where
to begin? College transcripts?  War record? While Kerry was serving
in Congress, Bush was mismanaging a baseball team and running Arbusto Energy
and later Harken Energy into the ground. Since getting elected, Bush
has gotten the country into
a misdirected war of attrition and built up a fiscal deficit of historical
proportions.

In fact, the only area in which it seems to the Dowbrigade that George
W. Bush has achieved success on a historical scale is in his triumphant
and successful attempt to unite one of America’s great political parties
- the Democrats!

At no time in our political memory has the Democratic party been as
united as it is today. The four-day Love Fest just completed in Boston
was as bereft of controversy and discord as the celebration following
the Patriots Super bowl win last January. Even the usually reliable protesters
fizzled pathetically, with a bottom line of one flag burned and a grand
total of three arrests. Politically volatile groups such as the environmentalists
and the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Alliance behaved themselves and got
along like drunken fraternity brothers at a toga party. The lions lay down with the lambs in
the mosh pit and they all emerged singing "We shall overcome".

Every other Convention we can remember had SOME controversy. The Kennedy
convention was not a done deal until the third day. There were bitter
platform fights in ‘64, the war protests practically derailed the convention
in ‘68, and there were splinter groups and third party rebellions at
every convention, up to and including the Clinton years.  Pugnatious platform plank battles and dueling delegate slates were the norm. In fact,
it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party has
not been this united since they nominated FDR for an unprecedented 4th
term in office.

More than any one person, the man responsible for this historic unity
and harmony is our courageous President. So lets
give credit where credit is due, and all Hail the savior of the Democratic
Party - George W. Bush!