Slogans without Substance

Although the presidential primaries have monopolized most of the political discussions for the past year, the starting gun on the 2008 congressional races has been fired. Over the past several weeks there have been three special elections in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi. Usually special elections serve as a harbinger for the upcoming general elections where each party tests the themes, ideas and strategies which they will employ in the fall. This time around all three races were to fill seats in mildly or considerably conservative districts, all of which were carried easily by George W. Bush in 2004.



Well what do you know, but there are now three new Democratic Congressman in the House of Representatives! We swept all three races, surprising both national and local pundits. Apparently, these Democratic successes got the attention of GOP leaders who sunk over $3 million dollars into these losing special elections. The leadership of the GOP have decided that to win they need to stand for change.





Given the rising gas prices, the increased cost of living, a depressed housing market, the endless disaster in Iraq, and high unemployment at home, you would think that change from the GOP would mean moving away from the disastrous policies of George W. Bush which have led America to our current predicament.

Alas, no the GOP leaders are advocating "Change" as a buzzword and not as a shift in policy.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002827818

The GOP strategy for the congressional elections will be to offer the same old Bush policies re-branded as "The Change You Deserve."

This amounts to a Slogan without Substance!

With Congressional Democrats offering long term energy relief for our economy:

http://www.democrats.org/a/national/clean_environment/energy/

The GOP will counter with an empty slogan.

With Democrats offering concrete solutions to address America's housing crisis:

http://www.speaker.gov/legislation?id=0196

The GOP will counter with just an empty slogan.

And with national and local Democrats (including our own Congressman Dale Kildee) supporting a national single-payer health care plan:

http://www.pnhp.org/publications/the_national_health_insurance_bill_hr_676.php

&

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00676:@@@P

The GOP will counter with, you guessed it, another empty slogan.

Good luck with that!

- Kyle M.