Laura Ingraham's E-blast from 7/30/04

The lovely Ms. Ingraham wrote this during the Democratic National Convention in Boston. As usual, she nails it on the head. For the Democrats, it is basically a "It's Now or Never" scenario facing them like a deer in headlights. (I apologize for the Elvis reference. I doubt that he would support their "ideologies".)

Here is Ms. Ingraham's message.:

The Heat is On


(Boston, MA) From the hallways of the Fleet Center to the bar stools of Loch Ober, the Democrats here are giddy at the prospect that their long national nightmare--their time in the wilderness--is almost over. Boston is their spiritual home. They are doing their best to keep the primal anti-Bush outbursts to a minimum. They even managed to keep Howard Dean on a relatively short leash. (Remember, for Teresa Heinz Kerry, telling someone to "shove it" actually is good behavior!) The Dems have a token Southerner on the ticket - always a sign that they are serious about winning. They got prime-time speeches from their two favorite persons in the world, who gave us yet another chapter in the saga of Bill and Hill. Most of all, after waiting for almost four years, they finally have their chance to smash the hated George W. Bush and his crowd of Bible-thumping, tee totaling, gas-guzzling, gun-shooting, warmongering rednecks.

The Kerry campaign urged everyone who took to the podium to keep things positive, and anyone sufficiently prominent to speak in prime-time will carefully follow that script. But they can't muzzle everyone, and they can't script D-friendly events that occur outside of the convention. I had the misfortune of staying at the hotel where a group called "Take Back America" hosted a whoop-it-up Bush Bash honoring Michael Moore. A standing room-only crowd of Moore fanatics at the Royal Sonesta Hotel were entranced. He is their Elvis only his doesn't toss scarves into the audience, he tosses out verbal tongue lashings against all this familiar targets—the Bush Administration, Fox News, corporate "war profiteers" (Halliburton, GE), and flag-lapel wearing "mainstream" journalists who are "afraid to ask real questions." Of course he also sung the praises of his favorite subject-himself. For him, Bush is the "obvious villain," while countries that defy the Administration, like Canada, are wonderful. "Canada is just like the America," he said,"but better." This is the "blame America" rhetoric that doesn't usually make the evening news. This is the verbal bile that makes the Kerry-Edwards sunshine team very nervous.

But you don’t have to go to a Michael Moore speech to feel that the hatred -- raw, sheer, unmitigated hatred -- is palpable throughout the convention. You sense it in the bumper stickers that say "Re-Defeat Bush." You see it in the volcanic rage provoked by any reference to the current President. Most powerfully, you feel it in the raw, crackling energy that pervades the Fleet Center. Believe me, they're not this excited just because they want to raise taxes. This time it's personal.

In fact, it represents a sort of family feud. The divisions that roil American politics grow out of the fight that split FDR's New Deal Coalition. The last time the Democrats nominated a Massachusetts Senator for President - in 1960 - they were clearly the majority party, their ranks swelled by socially conservative Protestants and Catholics, many of whom had supported the party since the days of William Jennings Bryan. But the liberals chose to break up this coalition, to attack and ridicule the social conservatives on every possible occasion, to accuse them of racism, sexism, homophobia, and any other sins that liberals could imagine.

The social conservatives took the hint, and by 1980, the New Deal Coalition was at an end. The Democrats haven't put together a winning combination ever since. Oh, sure, they had - and have - the Clintons, but two people (no matter how talented) are no substitute for a majority of voters. And so even though President Clinton presided over eight years of prosperity and (a sort of) peace, he also saw his party lose the House, the Senate, and the White House. And despite all the editorials from the New York Times and the Washington Post, despite all the influence of Hollywood, despite near-uniform support from every single university in America, despite the flood of Bush-bashing tomes filling up the tables at your local bookstore, the Republicans still control our government. And so Democratic hatred grows.

Now we don't normally think of the Democrats as haters. After all, they don't hate the terrorists who bombed us on 9/11, and who threaten us around the world. They don’t hate the French. They don’t hate Fidel Castro. They don't hate pornographers, or doctors who abort unborn children, or murderers sentenced to die. They didn't even hate the Soviet Union - in fact, they were outraged when President Reagan dared to say that the USSR was "evil." Apparently, they've been saving all that hatred for George W. Bush and all those folks in the flyover states who keep pulling the Republican lever.

And that hatred - which gives this convention so much of its energy - means that for the next few months, John Kerry will be living in a pressure-cooker such as few American politicians have ever experienced. Since they ran off the social conservatives, the Democrats have lost too many elections. More and more, they talk as though they were prisoners trapped in a hostile land - a place where elections are stolen, where multinational corporations create wars, where Hollywood stars live in fear of Baptist ministers. The Democrats increasingly welcome nutty filmmakers like Michael Moore. and America-bashing celebrities like Susan Sarandon. They are ashamed of our history, of our prosperity, of our flag-waving patriotism, and of our insistence on remaining free and sovereign despite pressure from the EU and the UN. In short, the Democrats are simply no longer recognizable as the party that gave us FDR, and Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy. Instead, they increasingly resemble an angry seminar of conspiracy-minded grad students.

That is the party that John Kerry is supposed to take to victory. If the Democrats lose again - if they have to watch those stupid, ill-bred Republicans celebrating on election night - they will turn on Kerry (and each other) with merciless rage. So the Democrats better enjoy this week. Because if Kerry doesn’t get the bounce he needs from this convention--and early polls are showing he’s not-- it could be the last happy week for the Democrats for a long, long time.
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Things could get uglier than "Lurch's" un-botoxed face if he and the Dems lose big! They would become more unhinged than Howard Dean and Algore combined! Let the entertainment begin!

If you have not done so yet, I recommend her book, Shut Up and Sing. If you have not heard yet, she is THE MOST SUCCESSFUL FEMALE RADIO SHOW HOST!!! Take that, "Airhead" America!