WP, Dionne: GOP turns Morning in America into midnight horror show

[DeepModem Mom]

Republicans' Double Negatives
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006; Page A21

Ronald Reagan's brilliant achievement on behalf of American conservatism was to capture hope and optimism from a liberal movement that enjoyed a near monopoly on those virtues from the day Franklin Roosevelt told us we had nothing to fear but fear itself.

Whatever else it will be remembered for, this year's campaign will mark the moment when Republican leaders who govern in the name of conservatism turned definitively away from hope and waged one of the most trivial and ugly campaigns in our country's history....

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...this year Republican campaigners and their advocates in the conservative media have crossed line after line in sheer meanness, triviality and tastelessness. Conservative optimism and its promise of morning in America have curdled into the gloom of a Halloween midnight horror show....

***

My hunch is that the sliminess won't work this year. A Newsweek poll published over the weekend found that only 9 percent of voters who have seen Republican ads say they made them more likely to vote for GOP candidates; 24 percent said the ads made them less likely to vote for Republicans. By contrast, Newsweek reported, "The Democrats seem to turn off fewer voters with their commercials and win more over, but it's still a wash," meaning that Democratic ads attracted and pushed away roughly equal shares of the electorate.

My hope is that principled conservatives will rebel against those who are dragging their once forward-looking movement through the mud. In their hearts, they have to be asking: Would Ronald Reagan campaign this way?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103000826.html

[Javaman]

1. A better quip would have been...

the gop has turned morning in America into dawn of the dead.

[Demit]

2. Dionne's column is about the sliminess of Republican ads this election year

and his metaphor fits his thesis. Your quip doesn't. If you want to expand on your quip, and show how it would make sense, we'd be all ears.

[Javaman]

3. When you regain your sense of humor, I'll explain it then. nt

[Dob Bole]

4. Oh yeah? Take this, biotch!

What's the matter? Can't keep up with "His metaphor fits his thesis." :)

Oooooohhhh!

[Javaman]

7. Damn some people have no sense of humor.

Dang folks, just lighten up. it was only a fucking quip. holy christ in a hoola hoop.

[Dob Bole]

10. And I was joking...but you didn't notice that either.

So, see how easy it can be to not notice a joke online?

[Demit]

5. Your quip was cute. Just asking you to explain what it means. Can you?

[Javaman]

6. ugh, I hate explaining jokes.

the quip was on the title not the content. Since it was originally morning in america and it went bad, wouldn't a title from the old george ramero horror movie be better, dawn of the dead?

[Demit]

9. LOL! I hate deconstructing jokes too, but mornings don't turn into dawns.

I'm not really trying to beat up on you, but I guess it was how you characterized your phrase as "better" than Dionne's that rubbed me the wrong way. That's all. It was just the "better" part.

I like the image of Repubs as zombies, and I like Romero's Dead movies. Especially the one where they're all moving through the shopping mall.

[Doctor_J]

8. What's a principled conservative?

I don't think I know any such person.