Earlier this week, Nancy Pelosi assured Americans that a Democratic supermajority in Congress would translate into “more bipartisanship.”
Set aside for a moment the nonsensical nature of that statement, and let us consider what Democrats really have in mind when they talk of bipartisanship. A helpful case study can be found in my home state of Tennessee.
Early last year, State Senator Rosalind Kurita broke from her party to cast the sole Democratic vote in favor of Republican Ron Ramsey to succeed outgoing Democratic Senate Speaker John S. Wilder.
This angered the Tennessee Democrats.
Fast-forward to this year’s state primaries, which were held on August 7. Kurita held off challenger Tim Barnes – by a mere 19 votes, out of a total of 8,935 cast. A recount upheld Kurita’s narrow margin of victory, which was then certified by election officials.
This infuriated the Tennessee Democrats.
Lucky for them, Tennessee state law allows the party to arbitrarily decide who their nominee will be, regardless of silly things like election results. So party officials convened in Nashville, promptly deemed the election results to be “incurably uncertain” – and simply handed the nomination to Tim Barnes.
Delicious irony, coming from the same party that so bitterly accused Republicans of “stealing” the election from Al Gore in 2000.
Getting back to bipartisanship. Assuming Tim Barnes is elected next week (Kurita is now waging a write-in campaign; there is no Republican challenger), what are the chances he will be reaching across the aisle during his term in the state senate?
Try zero.
You see, Democrats really don’t mind bipartisanship at all – so long as it Republicans who are kowtowing to them. Bipartisanship amongst their own members results in the Joe Lieberman Treatment.
Just ask Rosalind Kurita.
Rosalind, I hope you get your pound of flesh November 4th!!!!
Perhaps this site can keep track on how the vote goes….. 🙂
I’ve got $5 on the “woman scorned”.
sounds like taking away the voice of the voter? voter suppression maybe? mmm, stupid dems.
@ Timothy
I’ll definitely let you know, either here or in a new post. Hopefully the Republicans in that district come out to support Kurita (there’s no Republican running anyway)…
“Give us a supermajority in Congress and it won’t matter who you have in the White House, suckers”
PELOSI IS A TRAMP
‘nuf said!
That is what the dems did in Alabama in the governor’s racein the 1980s. They took the nomination away from the duly elected nominee and gave it to his opponent who the party wanted. Alabama was at that time a democrat state. There really were very few republicans. Most offices were unopposed. When the party did what the did the voters voted republican and Alabama has been republican ever since. You would think the dems would learn their lessons but evidently not.
Sounds kind of like how the ONE got selected as the nominee.
Whoever the powers to be want elected or selected wins
Dan: The example of Joe Lieberman is a perfect analogy as to the kind of “bipartisanship” the GOP could expect in the next Congress.
And let’s not forget that before Pelosi took over as Speaker in 2006 she promised bipartisanship, civility, ethics, openness, blah, blah, blah.
A rat doesn’t lose it’s tail just because it gets bigger.
Think too of how the Dems pounced on the Mark Foley scandal as a symbol of widespread Republican corruption back in 2006.
His replacement, Tim Mahoney, now makes Foley look like a choir boy.
Pelosi’s response thus far has been a two-sentence press release, basically saying “we’ll look into that.”
Yeah, right.