Posted 11:04 PM by steve

A number of blogs are trashing this poll which reportedly predicts that Republican candidates will suffer next month if Hastert remains Speaker.

Their argument is that people don't vote for generic 'Republican' or 'Democrat' candidates, they vote for or against the specific individuals running in their district.

This is true... but only for those voters who have an opinion one way or the other about the specific individuals running in their district... and, perhaps unfortunately for the GOP this fall, voters tend to not have a whole lot of knowledge about their particular Representative. Despite all the subsidized mail their Representative sends out, the voters don't know the bills their Representative sponsored or voted for. They don't know the ratings given to their Representative by the various liberal and conservative interest groups.

All these voters know, if that, is the party to which their Representative swears allegiance to.

And these are the voters, I believe, who are going to hand control of the House to the Democrats... because when they walk in to the polls in a few weeks, they are going to look for the (R) next to a candidate's name... then pull the lever for whomever is running against that candidate.

And not that it matters, but I don't think this is Hastert's doing... at least not with regards to the Foley mess. The Republicans as a whole - from Bush on down - can collectively take credit for turning a winning hand into an all-but-sure loser.

They've alienated their core supporters with such stupidity as running up huge budget deficits, expanding Medicare beyond which even the likes of Clinton could have imagined, failing to safeguard our borders, and failing to take terrorism seriously (Our ports and mass transit have received next to no attention while the more-intensive airline security consists not of targeting those most likely to be terrorists but of confiscating toothpaste and liquid soaps).

And they've lost the middle by refusing to stand up and fight back against the lies and distortions put out by the left... even on issues where the middle was ready to embrace the Republican position... such as on detainee tribunals, 'intensive' interrogations and pro-active monitoring of communications potentially linked to terrorist activity.

The Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves when they lose control next month. Sure, the Democrats and the media lit the fuse, but it was the GOP that so carelessly left so much dynamite lying around in the first place.