The dilemma

One of my favorites, The Rude Pundit has a few suggestions for How to Start a Civil War in the Republican Party.

Here's how he starts out:

There's reasons that Karl Rove vomits blood at the thought of the Rude Pundit actually advising Democrats in a less blocky, more official capacity: because the Rude Pundit knows how to use the Lee Atwater bag o' tricks that Rove has drawn from (along with a few thuggish sleights of hand of his own). What Rove knows is that having power is all that matters: how you get the power is so much sh*t under the fingernails of the elephant cage cleaners. 'Cause you can be as noble and as right-minded as you like: without the power, you can do f***-all about your agenda. But once you have power, held high like the head of a deposed king, then the world can be yours.

Read the rest here

This is a dilemma I've written about and debated with some of my more radical friends on the blogosphere for some time. I was brought up in politics during the Lee Atwater reign of terror. I got to see first hand what he was capable of and I shudder to think of KKKarl Rove as a Lee Atwater without a conscience. The truth is that the Atwater School of Campaign Politics was absolutely brutal and now KKKarl has raised it to an art form. But we, as Democrats disdain those kind of tactics. We abhor the kind of dirty tricks and less-than-ethical activities that Atwater and his latter day disciples engage in.

...and yet....

They aren't going to quit. They're going to win if we don't match them....We can't go to a knife fight with a hacky-sak....

So do we abandon our principles?

What do you think?

Note on the picture: This is a picture of the infamous Brooks Brothers Riot in the Dade County Courthouse which STOPPED THE RECOUNT of Ballots in Dade County and helped give George W. Bush a 512 Vote win in Florida. The picture has been labelled to identify the people who were engaged in the "riot" to stop the counting. They were not, as portrayed by the press, "angry citizens". Instead, they are ALL Republican Staffers including one working for Tom Delay. I thought it was appropriate to display this picture to illustrate the "dirty tricks" that Republicans are capable of.

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