Kevin07’s election strategy: just stand for nothing

Note to the reader: throughout the review, the word “liberal” is used in the American sense of the word to denote left wingers, or “progressives” as the politically correct may say. And “Democrats” refers to the United States Democrats and not the spent embers of what was once Don Chip’s august party.

Former CBS News correspondent, Mr Bernard Goldberg’s Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right: How One Side Lost Its Mind and the Other Lost Its Nerve gives an insight into how the Republicans lost the 2006 mid term elections and how Kevin Rudd is exploiting the Democrats’ strategy in his election campaign to win office.

Towards the end of the book, Mr Goldberg explains how the Republicans lost and, given the strong parallels between the electoral strategies of the Democrats in 2006 and that of Kevin Rudd’s ALP, taken together with current polling, his revelations may prove to be very prophetic indeed for our federal election.

Goldberg claims that the Republicans lost because of several factors: the conflict in Iraq; corruption; out of control spending; and a belief (among the right) that the party had deserted its principles. But those issues were really just side dishes. The main course was the tactic employed by the opposition Democratic Party. The party ran on just one big issue “We’re not Bush” - and it was more than enough to win. Proving you really can beat someone with nothing.

Goldberg recounts his many meetings with conservatives who grew angry with the Republican Party. Democrats of course were always angry with Republicans, but during the 2006 campaign, the Democrats tried to minimise the differences with their political opponents and at all times kept well hidden from view all those in the party who, while representing the very essence of liberal Democratic values, would likely sully the party’s “moderate” veneer. (Oh yoo hoo, Mr Garrett, where are you)?

The Democrats realised that indeed they could fool some of the people all of the time.

Take just one example.

Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat Congresswoman from San Francisco - and now Speaker of the House - was missing in action in the days prior to the election, no doubt so that the less sophisticated blue collar voters would not cotton on to what an ardent socialist she really is, and possibly reconsider voting for the Democrats. Aping the Democrats, surprise, surprise, the Shadow Environment spokesman, Peter Garrett, seems to have developed laryngitis on the controversial matter of the Tasmanian pulp mill.

The Democrats did their best to muzzle unattractive voices in the Party. The only screw up was letting former presidential candidate Mr John Kerry - the guy who married a multi millionairess - blather blissfully about how only “dumb ass” Americans who fail at school wind up in Iraq. Immediately the Democratic leadership swooped on his wife’s citadel in an upmarket corner of Boston, and tossed the heiress’ husband into a padded cell. For the good of the party mind you.

It seems the ALP has copied this tactic by muzzling two vociferous advocates of Islam: Ms Tanya Plibersek (Member for Sydney, or is it Member for Shari’a?) and Ms Julia Irwin (Member for Fowler, or is it Member for Mecca?). It’s bad enough for Rudd’s ALP that some of us clearly remember that his party conferred citizenship on the scoundrel Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali. But it’s another thing altogether for the ALP to remind the public that there isn’t a shawarma separating it from Islam. All in all ... smart move Kevin!

The Democrats, a party littered with far left types, pretended they were not the party of far left types at all. And even without one sensible new idea about anything, they won. And the same thing could happen here. So very easily. Just look at the polls in the Prime Minister’s own seat of Bennelong, where the front runner, telegenic Maxine McKew, is not only way ahead on the polls but proudly stands for nothing.

While Goldberg exposes both sides of politics with equal energy, it’s clear that the attacks on liberals involve far, far more substantive issues. Issues such as:

• hypocrisy in the Democratic Party’s policies;
• a willingness for liberals to put personal ambition ahead of national security;
• a misunderstanding among liberals as to why (American) blacks are in the economic warren from which they seemingly cannot escape; and
• the most debilitating symptom of all: an inability to distinguish right from wrong, by constantly downplaying the War on Terror, not least by scuppering it through liberalism’s preferred terminology: the so-called War on Terror. As though both sides in the war have equally legitimate points to argue (Hello there radio ABC 702).

Goldberg’s attacks on the Republicans focus on his belief that the party has ditched its conservative values. The party no longer worries about illegal immigrants entering the United States; it worries now on getting those illegals to vote Republican. He also chastises the Republicans for spending like drunken sailors, when such obscenities were always the province of the Democrats. He hints that spending big and raising taxes (as is the Democratic way) is not favoured by him, but is at least honest. Spending big and simultaneously lowering taxes, as the Republicans have been doing under George W. Bush, Goldberg suggests, is not responsible.

Goldberg claims that liberals are great at talking the talk but somewhat unable to walk the walk. Liberals bellow loudly they are for affirmative action (which means giving a job to a black kid over a white kid with equal merit) but when he asks senior liberals in his workplace and then repeats that question to senior businessmen (also liberals) if they will yield (to a black man) their lofty jobs and fine salaries to advance the issue of race-relations, he finds not one will personally make such a sacrifice, but all agree that in principle it’s a noble ideal. He gives winning examples of such naked hypocrisy when he relates the shameless behaviour of former CBS News anchorman Dan Rather as well as big-talking-little-doing sophisticates at the New York Times.

He is gob smacked that Hollywood has more visceral anger to President George W. Bush than to Osama Bin Laden. Last he looked the United States President was not an active terrorist, unlike Saudi Arabia’s most famous outlaw.

Goldberg, who started life as a staunch liberal, is attracted to President George W. Bush for three reasons: the President is a man of faith; the President wears his patriotism on his sleeve and on his lapel; and the President like Goldberg but unlike most Democrats, understands that as a people and as a nation, there is nothing at all on the other side of the Atlantic than can compare to the greatness and the uniqueness of the United States. Not a thing. Goldberg’s conversion from a liberal to a centrist is arguably the glue that holds the book together.

He recounts how liberals will do anything to excuse murderers, even demonstrate for their early release, but will never forgive a (conservative) bigot once he has expressed remorse. Case in point: Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic remark. Last Goldberg looked, Mel didn’t kill anyone, but liberals still won’t forgive his sinful words.

In the interests of fairness, liberals believe that everyone should be searched at airports and deplores the very idea of ethnic profiling of air passengers. Pointing out that while not every Muslim is a terrorist, Goldberg - but not the liberals nationwide - acknowledges that every terrorist, from Russia, Israel, Iraq and America, is a Muslim. And hence it is sheer madness, he opines, to stop and check, say an 85-year-old Anglo Saxon grandmother from the Mid West with the same vigour as one would check say, a young Saudi Arabian male.

He is amazed that the party that credits itself with an open mind can take Global Warming as gospel, even though there is much dissent among scientists.

This book is an easy read. It appeals for three reasons: first, for comprehensively cataloguing the errors of judgment, the absence of scruples and the lapses of morals that are the hallmarks of the Democratic Party. Second, for the insight it gives into the rat cunning exhibited by both political parties in their quest to win office, where everything’s for sale, including a politician’s integrity. And third, for the successful template that it has so far proven to be for the ALP’s run in the coming election.