Mehlman: Sherrod Brown Is Ohio's Ned Lamont
In a speech today in Cleveland, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman calls Ohio's Democratic Senate candidate, Sherrod Brown, "Ohio's answer to Ned Lamont" and that Lamont's victory "reflects an unfortunate embrace of isolationism, defeatism, and a ‘blame America first’ attitude by national Democratic leaders at a time when retreating from the world is particularly dangerous."
"Brown’s candidacy, Lieberman’s loss, and the responses of many of the Democratic leaders to the difficulty of the global jihad all add up to show that defeatism and isolationism are now Democratic Party orthodoxy," Mehlman plans to say. "And Democrat candidates had better embrace it … or risk being purged from the Party."
He also casts the Republicn Party as inclusive: "Our commitment [is] to a big-tent Party, where independent voices like Mike DeWine, Ken Blackwell, and George Voinovich are welcomed. Today we welcome people like that, people who put their constituents and their state before their party. Just as we welcome independent-minded, Democrats like Joe Lieberman."
A footnote: the RNC research department sent out a document entitled "FROM FDR TO NED LAMONT: THE DEMOCRAT PARTY'S TRANSFORMATION FROM STRENGTH TO WEAKNESS"
Here's a response from Brown's team: "“Ken Mehlman and President Bush have gotten everything they wanted from Mike DeWine, so it’s no surprise that Mehlman is in town to campaign for one of the President’s most loyal supporters. DeWine failed to question the intelligence that led our country to war, and he voted to provide billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil and drug companies that have led to higher gas and drug prices for Ohio families. Every chance Mike DeWine had to stand up to the President, DeWine ducked.”
Funny, there is no "Democrat party." There is a Democratic party.
And is kicking out Joe Schwarz---MI-07 Republican Congressman who just lost a primary (he was seen as too close to Democrats)---part of the "big tent" philosophy?
Tell Ken if he wants that tent to be really big, he can have the other Democratic primary loser, Cynthia McKinney, as well.
"Our commitment [is] to a big-tent Party"
Yeah, Ken. That's why in Michigan moderate and pro-choice Republican House member Joe Schwarz was targetted by the Club for Growth and defeated in a primary yesterday by arch-conservative Tim Walberg.
And why right wing Mayor Steve Laffey is challenging moderate Senator Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island.
And why conservative Pat Toomey tried to beat moderate PA Senator Arlen Specter.
A piece of advice: don't throw stones if you are hanging out in a glass house.
Who does Ken Mehlman think he's fooling? Whatever happened to the "moderate" Republican Joe Schwarz (R-MI) who was soundly defeated last night by a rightwing Republican idealogue? Is the Republican party a party of inclusion as Ken Mehlman is trying desperately to have us believe? Lieberman lost because of his Bush-loving ways. And this is a message that the RNC greatly fears has superb traction among voters on both sides.
Ken, we get the joke.
You just keep riding that horse, Ken, all the way to defeat in November.
And why would you report such ridiculous remarks in the first place, Hotline? "Defeatism", "isolationism", and "Blame America first" attitudes? Seriously, give us an instance where "national Democratic leaders" have done anything that even gives the slightest support to that. Try being journalists, instead of mouthpieces for the mouthpieces.
The GOP inclusive?!? What about Schwartz in MI???
Do you libs think that the "GOP" controls local elections of run-off republicans? If a little conservatism is good, then even more is better. The GOP should endorse who they think will bring more to the table for the state, THEN accept whoever gets elected. Another example of bloggers putting the cart before the donkey!
Unfortunately the polls show that the majority of the American people believe that the Republicans are going down the wrong path. This is fact, not spin. The mask is finally coming off. Our Republican-led government has been acting the way amateurs do, not knowing or understanding the impact of what it has been doing, and more people are recognizing it or acknowledging it, especially with Lamont's win. From President Bush, who makes a joke of his ignorance, to stooges such as Rumsfeld and truly unfeeling fixed-idea men such as Cheney, we have suffered from inept and uninformed leadership. Iraq is just one example of such amateurness, with a war that had no plan for any follow-up. Iran is another. The way we’ve handled Afghanistan is still another. Our ignoring the essential conflict between Israel and the Palestine peoples, just hoping it will go away. Add them up and we can now see how inept this administration has been. Then look at the current economy, changed from a positive one in which our assets were growing to one in which almost everything except oil has been declining. Asking the military, who weren’t trained to build nations and who did their job heroically in the war, to sort out what needs to be done in Iraq or Afghanistan is truly amateurish; such work was never the military’s job. Not even having a full professional cadre of those who speak the language of our enemies, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Iran to Lebanon how could this administration even pretend to understand what forces it has unleashed? How could they even understand that a real possibility is the current civil war? The author of Fiasco, Tom Ricks, has said well probably have troops in Iraq for fifteen years because of how amateurishly things have been handled. He also has said that, as far as they're concerned, the Bush Administration is leaving this mess for the next administration. I grieve for our sons and daughters and our grandchildren who will be forced to handle the mess that will be left behind by this administration.
Apparently Ohioans agree with "isolationism, defeatism, and a ‘blame America first’ attitude" since Sherrod Brown is up 8 points over DeWine in recent polling.
Mehlman might be inclusive, but why are Swann and Blackwell losing by 15-20 points each? I'll give you a hint -- it's not their failure to adhere to GOP orthodoxy.
http://republicans06.blogspot.com/2006/08/be- sure-to-vote-in-my-first-poll.html