Don't Exhale Just Yet

In ordinary times, we could predict how scandal would affect elections for years to come. Richard Nixon was so repulsive that he turned red states blue and ushered in a class of "Watergate Babies" who would haunt Washington for decades to come. From Wikipedia.

• First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974:
  • Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)

• First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974:
• Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)
• Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana)
• Rep. George Miller (D-California)
• Rep. Richard Nolan (D-Minnesota)
• Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California)

That is how it used to work. Corruption disgusted the citizenry. Nixon and Agnew and Mitchell destroyed a lot of GOP careers. But that was long ago and far away.

The Democrats are ruled by an elite who sing from a different hymnal. They knew Barack Obama was a weak candidate in 2012. But if they could suppress the tea party vote, commit voter fraud in swing states, push the Benghazi investigation past November and get 90% of the media to assassinate Romney's character, they might just get their nag across the finish line ahead of the hobbled foe. A laundry list of activity, but that is what happened.

The DNC might have figured that eventually Benghazi, IRS abuse, APgate, etc., would surface. By that time, they would have scored victories in immigration, gun control and the sequester. When Obama failed to deliver on these things, his value had to be reconsidered. It was a matter of when, not if, the administration's dirty laundry was hung on the flag pole. Maybe it would be better to show all their cards now, three years before the next presidential election. Purge and move on to the next super star.

The power elite would love to control Congress but they have proven that they can rule and dominate without that quaint institution. They might not carry 2014 but they can hold the White House in 2016 if they play their cards right. There is something fishy about the sudden boatload of scandal and the press's instant withholding of affection. Maybe the centipede's other shoes will drop and the bad apples will be blamed and then it will be 2016. And then a new Jay Carney will remind us that the scandals of the past took place a long time ago. 

Don't exhale just yet.