the road to smellville

Tom DeLay is gone. Bob Ney is likely next on the hit-the-road-jack hit parade. Jack Abramoff is singing like Madonna with a new cd coming out and the smell of Republican scandal and corruption is wafting over Washington, D.C.

On top of that, the poll numbers for Karl Rove’s sock puppet are in the tank. The word most often associated with the President of the United States now is “incompetent.” Meanwhile, the Chief of Staff has be jettisoned in an effort to make the (mis)Administration look like it’s willing to change while the guy who orchestrated the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remains, the guy who outted a CIA agent remains, the guy who failed to orchestrate rescue for tens of thousands of stranded men and women up and down the Gulf Coast remains, the guy who secretly managed a huge giveaway program to the oil industry remains – hell, the guy who shot a guy remains.

So what can we expect over the months leading up to the November Congressional elections?

Secretly, Republicans concede that they will likely lose the House of Representatives to Democrats in the fall. It’s a good bet that looks better all the time that Democrats will take control of the Senate as well.

But there’s as lot of calendar to get through before that happens.

Republicans discovered that their bravado and chest-thumping now falls on deaf ears around the country. Republicans on fiscal responsibility? Don’t make me laugh.

Republicans on National Security? Hard to make that case when you want to outsource port security.

Republicans on family values? Well, when a Justice of the Supreme Court flips off a reporter on the steps of a cathedral and the president flips off the press corps after a news conference, it’s a little difficult to make that case. When the bribes and indictments each flow like a spring rain, you can’t really make a big deal of your personal virtue. And when your core Christian base is starting to rail about being persecuted and host a conference proclaiming that there’s a War on Christianity and they claim they are the new Jews, you kinda have to stop calling them a base.

So what strategy will Republicans employ?

One they know all to well, of course. Since they control the media and have virtually unfettered access to the airwaves, they will begin a relentless drumbeat to drive down support for Democrats.

Makes sense. When you can’t raise the bridge, you have to lower the water.

You will hear an echo chamber repeating the old saw that Democrats are “unserious on national security” – which already has begun on Fox News. You’ll hear over and over that Democrats don’t have a plan.

We’ll probably be treated to some loony theory about how Democrats are responsible for bird flu, acne and the fact that people can’t get a date on Friday night.

Only problem is, if you listen really closely, you can hear a note of abject desperation in their voices.

More soon.