2006 WINNERS & LOSERS

House of Representatives

Republican Losers:

Dennis Hastert R-ILL- Speaker of the House..whose lack of cognizant leadership led to the ethical collapse of R-incumbents under his stewardship.

Bob Ney R-Ohio- who should have resigned long before the November election but didn't, pled guilty of conspiring with the convicted lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, lost his seat and smeared the rest of Ohio incumbents running for re-election with scandalous residue. Ney was sentenced to jail time.

Duke Cunningham R-CA- took bribes from Defense Contractors, enriching himself with a yacht, a mansion etc., illegally influencing the decisions of House appropriations for Military hardware, pled guilty to all charges and is doing time in federal prison.

Mark Foley R-FL- a closet homosexual who messed around with underage pages for years, resigned after being outed by Democratic dirty tricks and retreated to rehab.

The results of this scandal, timed insideously to effect the outcome of the Midterm elections, was indeed the icing on the cake for the sweep of victories in the '06 elections which resulted in a the Democrats winning a Majority in the House.


Democrat Winners:

Rahm Emanuel D-ILL- who engineered the defeat of House Republicans across the board by devising a strategy that counteracted Karl Rove's "base only' tactics. He recruited Democratic candidates that fit the demographics of Republican districts; rejecting the tendency of D-Party Leftists to move to the far Left and envigorated the centrist coalition, morphing D-Party into a viable 50 State contender for all future state and local elections. (The Presidential race remains a "horse of a different color.")

Nancy Pelosi D-CA- the first woman and San Francisco Liberal ever to be Speaker of the House. She was in the right place at the right time. Considering her failure to appoint her friends to leadership positions and committee Chairmanships, I sincerely doubt that she would be the choice for Speaker of 2007's majority of centrist Democrats in the House. However, Nancy Pelosi IS a first and deserves credit for this achievement.


The Senate

George Allen R-VA- aka "macacawitz" self-destructed during his campaign for re-election. He was ahead by double digits going into the race against Jim Webb, a former Republican with little support from Virginia Democrats (except for his opposition to the Iraq War); inexplicably Allen blew it Big Time.

He was video taped by a Democratic operative of Indian descent, jokingly calling him "macaca."(later determined to be a racial slur in the far away neck-of-the-woods)

What followed was a deluge of accusations about George Allen's racist remarks in college. Democratic alums crawled out from under every rock and recalled racial slurs uttered by the wise cracker. Allen never recovered. WORSE, when he denied his Jewish ancestry and then embraced it by bringing his 92 year old mother into it..he was chopped livah and went on to lose a once "sure bet" to Webb. If Senator Allen didn't campaign at all, stayed home and didn't utter a discouraging word, he would've won IMO.

That's not saying much for his political skills. Allen's self-inflicted Senate defeat was the deciding factor in R-loss of the majority in the Senate. Not only that, Allen was the Conservative Right's pick for Presidential nominee in '08. Allen's political career is in the toilet..a good man badly beaten by Democratic dirty tricks for sure, but nonetheless, OVER for George Allen.

Senator Allen is my one and only candidate for the BIGGEST loser in the Senate in 2006. (Runner-ups don't even come close?)


The Executive

George W. Bush (R-Texas) "I have come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." He has had the most miserable year of any President in memory. Not only is he insanely hated by Left Wing Democrats and assaulted daily in Print & 24/7 TV News Networks, his own Party is sticking the knives in his torso with relish. "E tu Brute?" Recriminations abound from every quarter for the "thumping" Republicans suffered in the Midterm elections. He's a lame duck, all alone on a rickety limb.

The blame for the Republicans' loss of their local elections is their own faults, as I see it. What did they run on? Stay the course, when voters were fed and swallowed garbage served to them by wiley Democrats who promised the moon they'd never deliver?

The scandal smear muddied all. Republicans seemed unwilling to police themselves and apparently, thought the voters would'nt notice or homees would atleast repay them with a vote for all the goodies, ear marks and bacon brought home. WRONG..the Democrats hammered away at the Republican "culture of corruption" and it stuck. Ear Marks became a dirty word. Republicans were tar and feathered and run out of Congress on a rail.

By the time they realized that a tsunami of discontent and downright disgust was blowing their way..it was too late. But Bush isn't the culprit, if anyone played a roll in their defeat it may have been Rove for his insistence on sticking to his "base only" strategy when this year the base was NOT willing to cooperate with a Republican Congress that surrendered Republican principles to an obsession with POWER. Indeed, absolute power did corrupt Republicans in Congress, but not GW Bush, his power was long since mitigated by the turn coats in his own Party..and now neither has ANY.

Alas, in the Executive Branch, the buck stops in the Oval Office...soooo, GW BUSH is the BIG LOSER for 2006.