Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Get Newt!

Rich Galen

Friday September 30, 2005

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The chattering class in Washington is absolutely aquiver over the indictment of Tom DeLay. Everyone who knows anything spent the day talking about DeLay and Frist and Abramoff and Katrina and Iraq and wildfires and, last night, Judith Miller.

You can tell who the Democrats are. They're the ones with the big, silly grins on their faces. "See?" they are telling each other. "We knew we would be coming back to power soon."

But even among the most passionate donors to MoveOn.org there is a sense of unease because they know, even in the face of a string of the dreadful developments befalling the GOP, there is something missing. And that something is a lack of a positive alternative.

Newspaper reporters across this great land were writing their analysis pieces by comparing the indictment of DeLay to Newt Gingrich's political prosecution of the House Democrats' ethical ills in the 1990s.

What they have forgotten, or may never have known, is there was another side of the equation: A positive alternative agenda, and a messenger to present it.

Even if the Dems had an agenda - any agenda - who are they going to get to present it to the American people: Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid? Yeah. Right.

How about How-Weird Dean? I'd donate to get him on the road.

Hillary? Too high risk. You become the spokesperson and the next thing you know you're being attacked from the Left and the Right. Not a good way to kick off a Presidential campaign.

What the Democrats need is � Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich didn't care that he was being attacked. In fact, there is some reason to believe he reveled in it. According to Newt's thinking: If people were taking shots at the Contract it meant (a) they had read it and (b) they had thought about it.

Getting senior Democrats to talk about the Contract - even negatively - caused reporters to write about it which caused voters to read about it. And he was so confident in the language and the substance of the Contract that he was certain if enough read it, it would generate huge numbers of votes.

And so it did.

What to the Democrats of 2006 have in parallel to the Contract with America of 1994? Nothing.

As reporters have gone beyond their dislike for DeLay and into the substance of the charges, they are coming to the conclusion that there may not be any real case.

The Washington Post editorial page - not exactly a cheering section for Mr. DeLay wrote this about the charges of conspiring to evade election campaign finance laws in Texas:

This was an obvious end run around the corporate contribution rule. The more difficult question is whether it was an illegal end run -- or, to be more precise, one so blatantly illegal that it amounts to a criminal felony rather than a civil violation.

My guess is: No. And that will be the guess of many of the reporters who will, nevertheless, write "DeLay is Dead" pieces so long as their editors demand them - whether there is any evidence to support that assertion or not.

The President rang up an enormous win yesterday when the Senate voted to confirm Judge John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States.

Democrats who had promised to fight Roberts' nomination found a nation not the least bit interest in partisan sniping at the nominee for the Supreme Court and, in the end, exactly half the Democrats in the Senate voted for Roberts.

That is my point. There was no point-person for the Democrats who can help Democratic supporters easily understand their agenda.

Part of that is there is, no point-person. Another part of that is, there is no agenda.

Until the Democrats can clearly define an alternative future under their control, the only future they wili continue to face is : Republicans in power.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the Wikipedia entry on the Contract with America.

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