Moderation in the Defense of Liberty is No Vice--By Bob Kholos

    "Moderation in the Defense of Liberty is No Vice."

    I’m quoting myself, referring to the typical MSNBC news viewer. I was paraphrasing the 1964 presidential nominating speech at the 1964 republican convention by US Senator Barry Goldwater.
    Goldwater said, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”  He lost in a landslide to President Lyndon Johnson.
    Somewhere between the political thinking of Ann Coulter, who never found a war that she didn’t like—to LA Times Columnist Joel Stein, who never found an American soldier that he liked—is the real voter, who is ready to make my Democratic Party strong and powerful again.
    Although we will most likely pick up a few seats in congress this mid-term election, we will never capture an absolute majority within the three branches of the federal government, like we had under LBJ, until we dampen the voices of the most extreme elements of our party.
    The War in Iraq is unpopular, but is not necessarily unjust to the average American.  When Michael Moore and others make it a litmus test for a democrat to hold federal office—as they did to Joe Lieberman-- he may win the battle, but lose the war for the rest of us.
    Once again, as I mentioned in an earlier post—George McGovern in 1972 had the media behind him, over 50,000 American Soldiers had been killed in Vietnam, the war was almost twice as unpopular as Iraq is today, hundreds of thousands of protesters were hitting the streets every day, and the WW II decorated bomber pilot lost in a landslide to President Nixon. (Please see May archive: "McGovern Campaign--Pushing  Watergate")
    The average American voter felt threatened by this extremism, and extended the term of the unpopular President.
    The Democratic Party looked so extreme in 1972, that Richard Nixon even won California’s electoral votes for president, after he lost the governorship, years earlier, when he made his famous statement: “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.”
    The polls are predictable at this point: Iraq is unpopular, the President is unpopular, gas prices are too high, and therefore the GOP, which controls all three branches of government (some would include the US Supreme Court), is unpopular.
    We are seeing a lot of politically astute democratic congressional challengers who are not saying, “Out of Iraq now,” but are instead saying a reduction of American forces is the way to go.
    Voters are not yet tuning into the fall election, so the polls will be a better indication in late September.
If the Democratic party takes the November, 2006 playbook from “Code Pink,” Michael Moore, and Cindy Sheehan, and even Howard Dean, many voters will either not participate or vote Republican, and the outcome will be muddled at best.
    At the end of 2008, I would like to see a super-majority of democrats controlling the three branches of the federal government.
    However, we will have to be much better prepared to make a case of what we stand “for” and not “against.”
    Thanks for reading:
    Bob Kholos