He’s been trying the case quite vigorously in the press. And from what I can see, he’s losing.
Perhaps so. But it’s certainly not MY rhetoric. I am steadfastly opposed to abortion, and I believe it to be the murder of an innocent human. Nonetheless, I recognize that those on the opposite side of the debate are, in the vast majority, people of good faith who disagree with what I believe, have honestly reached their conclusions, and are acting upon them with reason and honest conviction.
And I have always said so.
You’re correct. It’s not The Left. It’s BrainGlutton, and Der Trihs, and anyone else that wishes to join this argument they’re advancing here.
To honest leftists: I apologize for my broad-brush of a moment ago. Please forgive me.
If I may step in in the middle of your lovely Argument Clinic, a comment:
Having worked in primary and general campaigns, elections and recounts, both succesfully and not, I must say that I recognize it annoys many that “moral judgement” is not, except in extraordinary cases, the determinant component in how people vote. It cost me dearly in a recent campaign, but it is what happens. Now, we may question the soundness of political judgement, as in, why would that district’s GOP voters not do the politically expedient thing and relieve the guy that draws fire. And that’s where things get sticky.
Under normal circumstances, an ordinary-joe officeholder that were in as much public-perception hot water as Delay would be an ideal candidate for the Party machine to ease him out with some sort of golden parachute and replace him with a fresh, clean “Go-GOP!” up-n-comer. BUT Delay is no regular officeholder. He looms HUGE over the Texas Republican landscape, and not only consistently delivers the goods in the hometown, but to use an old phrase, “knows where all the bodies are buried”. AND he’s the engineer of the Texas redistribution.
So in that district, Delay IS the Party Machine. And this should not be news to anyone, that in midterm primaries the voter sample is even more ridiculously skewed towards the hardest partisan hardcore han usual. Delay had what counts: an organization that reliably delivered twice as many people to show up and vote for him as did the other three candidates combined. Any longtime, powerful incumbent in such a race in such a district has a GOTV advantage of orders of magnitude over the challenger. I would not be surprised if incumbents the length and breadth of the nation swept their primaries by comfortable margins. It would be intersting to see what the turnout % was in this race, and how it compares with his priors.
Although it’s true that the decisions of the “court of public opinion” are political decisions – or, if you’d rather, that elected office is “employment at will”, you can be canned for any reason, for the wrong reasons or for no reason – and it would be equally a valid decision of the voters to throw his ass out just on accusations, there’s a certain notion of “maners” in partisan politics, that you don’t shoot your wounded unless it’s clear that their injury is fatal anyway or they pose an *immediate danger * to your other candidates. From a practical partisan politics POV, he’s valuable even as damaged goods. Even a weakened Delay delivers more as a Congressman, both for his district and for the delegation, than a raw freshman. Not only that, by drawing fire on himself, the weakened Delay draws it away from other assets of the party. And of course he buys time to be possibly cleared of the accusations. Also, to the chagrin of “culture of corruption” strategists, voters have traditionally shown a tendency to not punish their local pol for what some dude two districts over did, and often to not punish the hometown favorite son no matter what.
In brief, this was possible because, on the day of the primary, Tom Delay’s organization was still (and today is still) by far the most powerful in the GOP in his district, on the basis of prolonged incumbency and succesful past partisan accomplishment. “Moral outrage” single-issue voters would have been facing an unfair fight from the start anyway. For all I know, in absence of his troubles he would have won the primary by 80%+ against a total no-name, or even ran unopposed as many powerful incumbents are used to. In that case the actual outcome would at least be progress, and something for the Dem candidate to work upon.
I think you’re wrong. I offered **BG **two clear choiced to redefine this debate. He chose to go with the “morals” debate.
Nope, it is (to coin a phrase) overgeneralization. But still, elections have been won and lost over less.
JRDelirious thank you for that excellent post. That cleared up a lot of things for me.
John Mace, I can’t email you…I was wondering if you could email me so I can explain without further hijacking?
It might throw some light on the subject to ask why Clinton’s approval ratings were so high after he was indicted/impeached. I imagine the reasons were much the same as for Delay.
Republicans voted 64% for Delay, despite the allegations against him. The voters in the primary are likely to be more partisan than the general public. I would imagine that support for Clinton, even today, would be at least as high as that among the partisans of, say, a left-leaning message board. 
IOKIARDI is the flip side of IOKIADDI. I don’t find claims that either doesn’t exist to be very believable.
Regards,
Shodan
It might, if Clinton’s impeachment had actually been about issues of governance, instead of being based on his lies about his personal sex life.
DeLay, on the other hand, is on trial specifically for political crookery including classic bribery and corruption, not just for lying about an affair.
They are also likely to be far fewer in number. From what I’ve seen, only about one in seven Texas voters typically cast ballots in primary elections, and I gather that the early voting indicated that this election would be no exception. So the fact that DeLay decisively won the primary doesn’t mean that most of the Republicans even in his own district necessarily voted for him.
IMHO, if DeLay is re-elected, it may be advantageous for the Republican political machine, since (as JRD pointed out) political machines function best with well-connected incumbents greasing them. However, it will not do much good for the image of the Republican Party nationwide, especially if DeLay is convicted. It simply plays into the “Republicans are crooks and liars” stereotype that is being fostered by the current climate of sleaze.
I get what you’re trying to say, but that argument doesn’t really hold water. Firstly, Clinton wasn’t indicted. An indictment, such as the one against DeLay, might be a political matter, but it’s hard to say that it clearly is. An impeachment, OTOH, can pretty much assuredly be said to be politically motivated.
A better argument would be simply that “Clinton lied under oath”, regardless of impeachment or indictment. That lie is on the record. Whether it was about his sex life (as **Kimstu **has poo-hooed) is irrelevant. Now, no one has had the chance to vote for Clinton again, but just taking a wild guess, I think BG would do so if he could, and if Clinton were running against almost any Republican.
(I’m not quite sure what “poo-hooeing” is, but I’m willing to accept for the sake of argument that that’s what I did. :)) But I think that the crucial point here is that it isn’t irrelevant. During the Lewinsky scandal, most of the public seemed quite convinced that Clinton had indeed lied, and under oath. They didn’t much mind, simply because they felt that what he lied about was a comparatively trivial personal matter.
One might have expected a loyal Republican in DeLay’s position to have stepped down by now, for the Good of the Party.
But I think DeLay, like a number of his cronies apparently, is choosing the political machine over party reputation. I think what they’re betting on is that machine politics will be adequate to keep them in power even if they build up some serious image problems.
We saw the same approach with Democratic political machines such as Tammany Hall—everybody knew that the system was corrupt and sleazy, but as long as it was powerful enough, it was able to survive. It usually takes a fairly protracted “goo-goo” (good government) movement, built on slowly accumulating popular indignation, to sabotage the machine.
I think JRDelirious did a great job explaining why his staying in might be more for the Good of the Party, and for his own constituents for that matter, the people in question in the OP. Voting in one’s own naked self-interest above the greater good of the nation is not the kind of morality we all would choose, or with everyone else would choose, but it’s hardly mystifying.
Bricker, once again, you’ve forgotten which venue you’re in here.
So, it’s OK to break some laws, but not others. That’s called a rationalization.
I’m not saying you are doing the rationalizing, but I’m saying that someone like **BG **is. That is, unless he’s going to tell us that it would be immoral to vote for Bill Clinton again for public office (let’s say he runs for the Senate).
This is his standard approach.
If I am the one misinterpreting the thrust of the OP, why has the OP validated what I’m saying, in response to both my and John Mace’s questions? He’s had multiple opportunities to say, “That’s not my point.” Instead, he’s defend his point vigorously.
So why am I the one that’s off base here?
I think it a stretch to say that Delay voters in this primary were amoral. It might be that they think the charges to be partisan, as I certainly do about the charges against Clinton. Or they may simply not think the violations, even if true, were not terribly significant. Or they may figure that bringing him back is in their best interest because of his influence and what he can do for their district.
I think it’s wonderful that he won the primary. Now for the next several months he can serve as the poster boy for Republican corruption. Even if he wins in November, he’s going to be a bit of a millstone for anyone else that carries the GOP banner.
Oddly enough I brought up the same election results at lunch yesterday, after reading about it in the paper.
“You know,” I said, “Forty percent of the Republicans in his district don’t think DeLay should go back to congress.”
But, perhaps I am an optimist.
Tris
Or at least—according to how I’m interpreting the viewpoint of most of the public—it’s worse to break some laws than others, depending on the context in which you’re breaking them. For instance, it’s generally bad to lie under oath, but not so much when what you’re lying about is just your personal sex life.
How you figure? Is there some kind of ethical principle that requires us to treat all breaches of the law as equally bad, irrespective of their nature and context?
Yes.
No, but there is no reason to claim that we must all have the same Rubicon of lawbreaking in terms of when it’s moral or not moral to vote for someone. That’s what **BG **is doing, and that’s what this debate is about.