Give Democrats Credit: They Know How to Politic--UPDATE

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One thing that bothers me, has bothered me for 12 years actually, about the Republicans, is that they don't know what to do with leadership. Politics is a blood sport and the Republicans have always played like it's Chutes and Ladders (actually a ruthless game if you get into playing it). They snivel like children. And cry in the corner at perceived unfairness.

So Pelosi wields her barely- there electoral "mandate" as if her party won in a landslide. For all the babbling about working across the isle, does anyone, anywhere believe that the Democrats aren't going to jam through their progressive agenda even when the electorate voted for them because they campaigned on conservative values? The newly elected "moderates" will be footstools for the old guard and if they imagined something different while campaigning, they're under no delusions now.

The Republicans just can't find the gumption to be disliked. The Democrats thrive on hate. It is their fuel and their fire. So the Republicans can continue acting as they always have--as the kick-me party, playing second fiddle to ruthless, ethics-challenged, but winning and leadership wielding opponents. Thomas Sowell says it best:

There is no real question that Democrats are more skilled at politics than the Republicans are. Democrats are more articulate, not to say glib, and they know how to stick together.

You don't see individual Democrats in the Senate going off to do their own thing in concert with the opposition and against the interest of their own party, as Senator John McCain has done with so-called "campaign finance reform" co-sponsored with ultra-liberal Senator Russ Feingold, and as he attempted to do on immigration with liberal icon Ted Kennedy.

Democrats know better than to betray their base of supporters -- welfare state beneficiaries, the teachers' unions, environmental zealots, the ACLU and tort lawyers -- the way the elder President Bush betrayed his supporters who relied on his "no new taxes" pledge and the way the current President Bush betrayed them by attempting to create amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.

Republicans have too often forgotten the old-time admonition to the girl going to a party, to always remember to "dance with the one who brung you."

Will the next two years strengthen their spine? Eating shit sandwiches gets awfully tiring, but the Republicans actually seem to enjoy it.