Dems Are Feeling It: The GOP Machine Can Be Beaten (Alternet)

[flvegan]

n less than a week, Americans will go to the polls. It could be like other recent elections -- votes that recalled Shakespeare's line about a lot of "sound and fury, signifying nothing" -- or it could be an immense, cleansing wave washing away the worst period of one-party rule in American history.

The two parties will do what they will, but ordinary citizens -- the grass roots -- will largely determine which scenario will play out.

It may well be a historic moment. Next week has the potential to usher in a rare electoral realignment -- the kind of political shift that comes about once in a generation. The administration's disastrous consistency in everything it touches, from Iraq to Katrina to Terri Schiavo, could do for the progressive movement what Reagan's "revolution" did for the New Right -- move a whole generation of voters.

Analysts from across the spectrum agree that the Republican coalition is facing a perfect storm; it's not just the meat grinder Iraq has become and the boondoggle that's plagued its reconstruction. It's not just a host of scandals -- sexual, financial and electoral. It's not just an economy that's growing in aggregate but hasn't put more money into most people's pockets. It's not just the four million Americans who have fallen below the poverty line or the five million more Americans who lack health insurance since Bush was sworn in six years ago. It's all of those things combined with a profound sense of insecurity as health care and tuition costs skyrocket, jobs are shed overseas, Americans are neck-deep in debt, and the country's global leadership is being challenged even by staunch allies.

more at:

http://www.alternet.org/story/43736/

The article sets up and then asks the important question:

Even more importantly, perhaps, are the psychological stakes; Democrats and progressives need a win, and they need it badly. They need to know that funky voting machines and gay marriage amendments and Karl Rove's supposed "genius" are not infallible -- that the GOP machine can be beaten.

What will you be doing in the next week to prove it?

[JHB]

1. It's not a "perfect storm"...

...That would imply their problems are due to external factors, not to their own handiwork catching up to them.

It's more like a "perfect petard" they've hoisted, a "perfect corner" they've painted themselves into, or "perfect checkens" coming home to roost.

[requiem99]

2. It's their lies and bullshit FINALLY coming back around. I hope. If fraud doesn't happen