Bad News for the Legacy Candidates In 2006 Off Year Election
The 2006 Congressional elections in the United States are analyzed by the government controlled and commercial media as a fight between the Republican and the Democratic Parties.
There is another obvious paradigm, unmentioned by the mainstream media, and that is the issue of relatives of former officer holders running for high elective office. In the Northeast, in addition to Mitt Romney, the Republican Governor of Massachusetts and son of former Michigan Governor and 1968 presidential candidate George Romney, who is declining to run for re-election in anticipation of a presidential bid of his own in 2008; there is Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee, son of former Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island, who is running for re-election after a tough primary battle in a state that traditionally votes overwhelmingly Democratic.
In the Mid-Atlantic states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania; sons of former Governors are seeking statewide office. In New York, Andrew Cuomo, son of former Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo, and a Kennedy in-law, is running for Attorney General. In New Jersey, Tom Kean, Jr., son of former Republican Governor and 9/11 Commission co-chairman Tom Kean, who was appointed to the State Assembly and then the State Senate, is running for the United States Senate against Congressman Robert Menendez, who was appointed to the seat when Senator Jon Corzine was elected Governor in 2005.
In Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, Jr., son of former Democratic Governor Bob Casey, is running for the United States Senate against incumbent Rick Santorum. In Tennessee, too, although not in the Northeast, Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., son of the long serving Congressman Harold Ford, is running for the Senate. Both Casey and Ford, although nominal Democrats, hold positions much closer to Republicans than to Democrats.
Given that George W. Bush, Legacy Candidate-in-Chief, who stole the 2000 election, is languishing at below 40% approval rating in the polls; the Institute of Election Analysis thinks that all the legacy candidates, Republican and Democrat, will lose at the polls in November. Although Cuomo is running for Attorney General, usually voters like to divide Governor and Attorney General between the Republican and Democratic parties, especially in a year when corruption has traction.
Why the Democrats Won't Win the House
The Democrats will not win control of the House if that will make Nancy Pelosi the new Speaker. Nancy Pelosi is another legacy candidate, although representing San Francisco in the House, her father and brother were both Mayor of Baltimore, Maryland.
If most of the legacy candidates lose, it will be interesting to see whether the "investigative journalists" and astute "political analysts" bother to mention this obvious trend to their readers. Just what the United States needs, a legacy President, related to two former presidents; a Senate of legacy and millionaire office holders; and a legacy House Speaker pursuing a war in which kids too poor to attend college are being killed to fulfill the manhood fantasies of George W. Bush. Somehow, I don't think the Iraqis, who invented writing, are waiting for a learning disabled legacy United States President, who lost the election, to bring them freedom and democracy. The American voters will not further jeopardize the soldiers in Iraq by sending more of these spoiled rich kids to the Senate, which is responsible for foreign policy, or putting them in charge of the House of Representatives.
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