Saturday, January 17, 2009

You might notice a theme

"Fox News tells us that torture is wonderful, that we have saved humanity because we torture, and that Jack Bauer is a real-life hero because he always foils the bad guys and saves American lives because he tortures them into revealing where the ticking time bomb is! These 'religious' people must be Devil-worshipers because Fox News tells us that God wants us to torture people. After all, if God didn’t support torture, why did he allow his son to be tortured to death on the cross?"

Uh oh. That ought to wake a few people up. From the comments here.

"Many people will disagree over many aspects of the Bush legacy, but on Katrina ... It is impossible to challenge what so many of us witnessed firsthand, what the entire country witnessed through the images on our television screens day and night. Mr. President, you cannot pat yourself on the back for that one. We will debate the war in Iraq, debate national security, the economy, and the rest of your legacy. Those debates will continue for years to come. But on how you handled Katrina, there is no debate."

-- Campbell Brown

Nearly all the Republicans I know who stepped off the Bush bus called Katrina the straw that broke the camel's back for them.

Even during the anti-GOP climate of last year's campaign, you'd have been hard pressed to find someone who seriously believed the Democrats could make a real play for one of Texas' Senate seats. But now, Politico reports, Republicans are asking Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to remain in her post and not run for governor -- they're worried her retirement could be the key piece of the puzzle for Democrats looking to get a 60-seat super-majority in the Senate.

In part, the concern is that the GOP would have to expend precious resources defending what should be a safe seat, resources that they'll need both to prevent losses in swing states and to have any shot at capturing a Democrat's spot. But there is a certain amount of worry that the party could actually lose Hutchison's seat if she runs for governor, and besides -- the idea that Republicans would have to spend money on a Senate race in Texas would have been crazy earlier this decade.

This could be the first sign of a very real danger for the GOP. The state has been a stronghold, and considering its 34 Electoral College votes, it's a vital one. But several experts I spoke to for an article I wrote in November about the Hispanic vote said they believed the state's sizeable Hispanic population could make Democrats a real force in Texas within the next decade. "The future's bright in Texas," Cuauhtemoc "Temo" Figueroa, the Obama campaign's Latino vote director, said. "Whether in four years or whether in eight years, I do see potential there in Texas, because of just the sheer magnitude of the numbers."

It's always the Bronx lament: "Just wait'll next year." But even the Dodgers managed a World Series title over the Yanks.