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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review May 16, 2008 / 11 Iyar 5768

‘A fire bell in the night’

By Rich Lowry


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In 2006, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel had an inspiration: run culturally conservative Democrats in culturally conservative congressional districts.


This doesn't sound like the stuff of strategic brilliance, but it meant overcoming the cultural condescension of most national Democrats. In his 2006 book "The Plan," Emanuel knocked "What's the Matter With Kansas?" author Thomas Frank for declaring cultural issues less important than economic ones: "It's insulting to suggest that blue-collar workers are wrong to make faith or conscience, not money, their bottom line."


Emanuel's relatively conservative candidates carried districts in 2006 that Democrats had little business winning, and his approach is still working now. In Mississippi, Republicans just lost a special election in a congressional district they thought would be a showcase for the drag Barack Obama will have on his party. They ran ads linking Democrat Travis Childers with Obama and featuring a raving Rev. Jeremiah Wright.


But Childers is pro-gun and pro-life. A local businessman, he has deep roots in the community. No one was going to mistake him for Obama. Nor were they going to hold the fulminations of the Rev. Wright against him, unless the pastor were to come out of retirement to lead the East Booneville Baptist Church, where Childers is a member. He won by eight points. In post-mortems, Republicans had a plaintive air, as if it's no fair that Democrats won't run down-the-line liberals anymore.


Republicans have become adept at explaining special-election defeats in formerly Republican districts, after losing three in a row: in Illinois, in the seat that had been held by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert; in Louisiana, in a district they had held for the past 33 years; now in Mississippi, where Bush won with 62 percent of the vote in 2004. The typical excuse has been poor candidates. But Republicans used to win these kinds of districts even with lackluster candidates, and what does it say about the party that it can't recruit better candidates?


For Republicans, Mississippi should be a "fire bell in the night," as Thomas Jefferson said of a sectional flare-up prior to the Civil War. The National Republican Congressional Committee spent $3 million on the special elections, about 40 percent of its cash-on-hand as of March. Fundraising will be hurt by the losses, with business donors scrambling to curry favor with the ascendant Democrats. As the Politico reports, freshman Democrats in traditional Republican districts who were thought ripe for the picking during a presumed Republican rebound in 2008 aren't facing serious challenge.


And all this before Republicans face a financial onslaught in the fall from Democratic independent expenditures, left-wing 527s, the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee. If Republicans lose another 20 seats in the House, they'll be down roughly 70 overall, and if Obama wins the presidency on top of it, as the NBC political tipsheet "First Read" has noted, "it will be the biggest mandate any Democrat has had for governing since LBJ in '64."


The chairman of the NRCC, Tom Cole, hasn't tried to minimize the implications of the Mississippi loss. In a conference call with reporters the next day, he said so often that the public has lost confidence in Republicans that it could have been a Democratic call. Republicans readily admit that they have work to do reformulating their agenda, but are at a loss as to how exactly to go about it.


For now, they'll have to hope that John McCain finds a way to distance himself from his party and pick up independents while not losing his own base. Philippe Petit, who famously did a high-wire walk between the towers of the World Trade Center, had a less treacherous course. Over the longer run, they have to become identified with a domestic-reform agenda on health care, energy and family income that addresses middle-class concerns.


But renovating a party's public standing isn't the work of a few months. At least time in the minority provides opportunity for reflection.

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© 2008 King Features Syndicate

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