I guess I’m failing to see how you define yourself as an independent if you are never going to vote for another Democrat in your lifetime. Doesn’t that just make you a dissatisfied Republican? We do have a two-party system, after all.

BTW, if all of those who were dissatisfied with Bush voted with the Democrats, they would receive 64% of the vote according to the Newsweek poll. Even the Democrats realize that’s unrealistic.

But the GOP’s woes are not confined to Bush- aren’t voters going to be looking at who has supported the policies they’re unhappy with all of this time? Also, a key reason for the GOP’s loss in ’06 was not Bush, it was their own failure to provide oversight, immersion in multiple scandals and failure to send fiscally sound budgets to the WH.

I will never vote for another Democrat as long as I live. Whoever the Republicans put forth will get my vote.

There are many, many like me who are dissatisfied with Bush but who will never vote for a Democrat.

Someone like Rudi or Fred Thompson just might pull enough of the independents out of the muck along with the Republican base to put another Republican in the White House.

Especially after 2 years of another Say everything……….Do nothing Democratic Congress.

Oh they will forget that the Republicans were a Say everything…….Do nothing congress too.

Its not what have you done, but What have you done lately that matters.

Congress’s ratings are traditionally low- the 109th was even lower I think-people vote on individual candidates- rather than how they think Congress is performing as a whole. If the Republicans can blame the Democrats for getting nothing passed they might contain some of the damage. But I don’t think the Republicans will regain control.

As far as Congress, that’s the Dems to lose too and so far their polling numbers aren’t much better than Bush’s; it’s early days yet so we’ll see.

Speaking of Congress, anyone here think that Durbin ought to be censured for knowing that all the Iraq intelligence was indeed bogus before the vote, yet he wimped out and said nothing because the neocons told him these were “classified” lies?

Durbin should lose his seat, and Tenet, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush should be in jail.

Of course, they should ignore the fact that the Dem Congress is polling around 38% approval.

Speaking of Congress, anyone here think that Durbin ought to be censured for knowing that all the Iraq intelligence was indeed bogus before the vote, yet he wimped out and said nothing because the neocons told him these were “classified” lies?

shouldn’t some of you be considering the consequences of one party rule from the Dems?

Yes, but I’d like to see it divided between the Democrats and possible non-Republican third and fourth parties.

The Republican party deserves to be dismantled at the national level for the conduct of the President and Congress over the last 7 years.

It’s certainly the Dem’s election to lose right now, but they’ve been known to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory before so it’s certainly too soon to assume that we’ll have undivided rule again (and BTW, since so many moderates said that the main reason for electing a Democratic majority to Congress was to bring back divided government, shouldn’t some of you be considering the consequences of one party rule from the Dems?)

If you define Jane and Joe as middle-class Main Street Americans, which I do, then I disagree.

The key to the Democrats is that they know that they can win without appealing to Jane and Joe Sixpack. That is probably the least important group in the coalition of groups that make up the Democratic Party.

But underlying Bush’s sagging poll numbers, which I do not believe can get much lower without really starting to erode his base, is that he and his party’s “accomplishments” of the past six-plus years have been built on deceit and lies. There simply is very little that any Republican running for president can do to get out from under that crushing weight.

Even that charmingly refreshingly independently Fred Thompson, were he to survive the primaries, will be confronted with this conundrum. Methinks the 2008 election will be interesting in that the candidates from both parties will be running against the Bush “legacy.”

And while bush’s ratings are in the toilet, and deservedly so, no republican is running in 2008 as bush’s successor in spirit

What a joke. Sure, McCain, Giuliani and Romney say they would have done things differently in Iraq, but they don’t say how. They refuse to admit the war is a mistake and they don’t offer any solutions.

If there is a difference between them, it’s purely rhetorical.

Given these poll results, perhaps George ought to start calling himself “Georgie” and giving interviews to Playboy about “committing adultery in my heart.”

And some hostages in Iran…wait, the UK already did that.

Congress should appoint an independent bipartisan commission to judge whether the surge is truly leading to success or if it is just crushing the minority party to mask the inability of Maliki’s government to meet any of its benchmarks.

each gop nominee is taking pains to distance himself from bush

Except of course on the biggest issue in the race. And that issue will only be more important to voters in another 18 months (and 200 billion dollars or so).

These guys have till Oct. 2007 at most IMO to announce they’ve had a “change of heart”‘ on continuing the Iraq war indefinately. And how the electorate going to view that spectacle? 9 guys (Paul never supported the war) having a “change of heart” within a few weeks of each other?

You can’t help but laugh at such pure cynicism.

Other than that, it doesn’t seem to convince people that dead Americans are a bad thing, a skyrocketting debt is a bad thing, or that giving the world at large the bird is a bad thing, so, I’m still skeptical.