Can Republicans retake the house?

[ProfJohn]

George Will has been around for a long time and knows a great deal.

I think he makes sense.

If Republicans can win in 2008 then they most likely retake the house.
If not then the 2010 mid year elections should give them another great shot.

As he points out there are 61 Democrats sitting in districts won by Bush in 2004, those would be the places Republicans aim to take back.
Link

Tom Cole earned a PhD in British history from the University of Oklahoma, intending to become a college professor, but he came to his senses and to a zest for politics, and now, in just his third term in the House of Representatives, he is chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. As such, he is charged with recruiting the candidates and honing the tactics that will transform Speaker Nancy Pelosi back into House minority leader. "We are looking," says Cole, speaking unminced words about the Republican Party, "like a beaten-down stock." Nevertheless, he is sanguine regarding 2008: "The positioning is good for us" because "we don't have to conquer new territory, we have to reclaim old territory."

That is, 61 Democrats represent districts that George W. Bush carried in 2004. A 16-seat gain in 2008 would restore Republican control to the House.

Consider the Second Congressional District in Kansas. Jim Ryun held the seat easily for five terms. In 2006, he lost to Nancy Boyda, who won with just 50.6 percent. In 2008, President Bush will not be, as he was in 2006, a burden at the top of the ticket. And Kansas's popular Republican senator, Pat Roberts, will be on the ticket. And Kansas's popular Democratic governor, Kathleen Sebelius, who helped Democrats down the ballot in 2006, will be in the middle of her second term.

Might Democrats gain some seats they nearly won in 2006 -- for example, the then-open Chicago area seat previously held for 16 terms by Republican Henry Hyde? The Democrats' novice candidate, Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in the Iraq war, got 48.65 percent against Republican Peter Roskam. Cole says he hopes the Democrats will throw resources at that seat because they will be wasting dollars, given that they could not win it as an open seat. He is too polite to add that they could not win it with Bush as a weight in Republican saddles.

Although Cole is playing to win, and expects to win, in 2008, retaking the House may be, he says, "a two-step dance for us." He thinks Republicans have a good chance of winning control even if they do not win the White House. He notes that after Republicans lost 48 House seats in 1958, they gained 21 seats in 1960, when John Kennedy was narrowly elected president. And if Republicans do not win control of the House in 2008 and a Democrat is elected president, they have a really excellent chance of capturing the House in 2010, because the party that wins the presidency usually loses House seats in the next midterm election.

Cole wishes he "could make every [Republican] donor watch C-SPAN," to see what House Democrats are doing. He can't, but he savors such attention-riveting events as Pelosi's trip to Syria, which he thinks was so "wonderful" for Republicans that he would gladly finance a trip by her to Iran.

The last time House Republicans suffered a defeat as large as they did in 2006 (30 seats lost) was in the 1974 post-Watergate election (48 seats lost). That was the year their third-ranking leader was born -- Florida's Adam Putnam, the House Republican Conference chairman.

Still, Democrats have their smallest House majority since 1955. And Republicans still hold 10 more seats than they did at their peak during Ronald Reagan's presidency. This, in spite of the fact that Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and his winning margin of 2.5 points in 2004 was the smallest in history for a reelected president.

Cole is planning as though Republicans will have to retake the House the unusual way they did in 1994 -- forming a majority without the help of a Republican president and perhaps without much help from the Republican presidential candidate. Because perhaps 21 states are going to hold presidential primaries on Feb. 5, 2008, some states that "we are not going to carry" in the 2008 presidential election (he does not list any, but surely he has in mind such states as Illinois and New York) are going to be important in selecting the Republican nominee.

But Republican House candidates may get considerable help from the Democrats' presidential candidate. Cole thinks that Democrats, who he says have more litmus tests for their presidential candidates than Republicans do, are so convinced that they are going to win the White House, they are not resisting what they enjoy surrendering to -- the tug from the party's left.

Americans seem to like the government at least somewhat divided. They are apt to have that for a while.

Finally point, in the 50s the house went back and forth. It might be a good thing for us to return to those days. This would keep one side from going off the deep end.
The more worried they are about losing power the more likely they are to do the right thing.

 

[Rainsford]

I think it's quite the opposite, if a Republican wins in 2008, the Dems will probably stay in power in the house...but if a Democrat wins in 2008, the house will probably be up for grabs. Even if they don't admit it, I think most people intuitively realize that a Congress and Executive presiding over vigorous agreement is not a good thing for the country, and never has that been better demonstrated than during the Bush presidency. I don't think most people want a return to that, and I for one actively want to see each branch at the throat of the other...enough so that I'd consider voting Republican in the event of a Democratic victory in 2008 if the Republicans can field some non-looney toons candidates.

 

[ProfJohn]

Rain, I get the idea you are pushing, but I don?t think there is any evidence of people actually voting that way. Maybe things will change, but I doubt it.

Whoever wins in 2008 will most likely get the house and then 2010 becomes a toss up.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Rain, I get the idea you are pushing, but I don?t think there is any evidence of people actually voting that way. Maybe things will change, but I doubt it.

Whoever wins in 2008 will most likely get the house and then 2010 becomes a toss up.

Heh, call it wishful thinking on my part. Still, while there is something to be said for political momentum, I wonder... While my initial logic may be incorrect, I wonder if there might be a delayed reaction along the same lines. After all, having control of the entire government can backfire if you can't get things done. The Republicans lost big in 2006, IMHO, because voters felt things were a mess and held the Republicans responsible...and very little of that blame spilled over to the Democrats. This is almost certainly a danger to the Democrats if they win in 2008, the 2010 elections could be a repeat of 2006 with the Republicans coming out on top this time. If a Republican wins in 2008, the Republicans might pick up a few seats, but I think an actual flip in Congress would require some sort of external catalyst.

We'll see, I suppose

 

[ProfJohn]

Rain, many of the Democrat victories in 2006 were very shallow. It would not take much for the Republicans to retake the house in 2008. But that would most likely require a victory at the top that carries on down the line.

As Will points out there are 61 Democrats sitting in ?Republican? seats. A strong Republican victory at the top and they most likely gain most of those back.

I believe that in 1996 Republicans lost a lot of the ?Democrat? seats that they had won in 1994. Essentially Democrat voters pissed off at Clinton put a Republican in office and then changed their mind. Could see a repeat in 2008.

 

[Butterbean]

George Bush was a poison pill for Republicans and I don't know if the party has any identity because they keep spewing out RINO's. Democrat's are like a crazed, irrational bitch mother driving the family nuts and the Republicans are like the whipped dad trying to be "nice" and getting along - which backfires miserably. Mr "compassionate conservative" has flushed GOP down the potty. Mexico craps on Bush, the CIA craps on Bush, State Dept Craps on Bush the media craps on Bush, Iran craps on Bush, Chavez craps on Bush, NASA craps on Bush Pelosi, Murtha and Democrats crap on Bush, the whole world craps - and he does nothing except spew the same garbled, braindead aphorisms. Truth is the Republicans had it made in the shade and they blew it big time. They don't articulate anything and they don't fight. I dopn't see anyone who has a spark on the horizen. The bitch-mom Democrats and the whipped-dad Republicans are running us off the road and there is a massive crack-up coming. This country doesn't have men anymore.

 

[Lemon law]

2008 is so far off its impossible to predict now---the big problem for the republicans is all that bad social policy they passed between 2000-2006. Most of those chickens are still out there and where and when they come home to roost will be the big joker in the deck.

Nor do I where this crazy man that that other crazy man, George Will, is pointing to comes off saying its our seat because we had in in 2004. The point being the nation moved to the right by the year 1994 and voted in a bunch of Republicans. By 2006 the nation had learned the folly of its ways. The point being, a lesson that took 12 years to learn is not easily unlearned. And as long as GWB&co. is around to hammer in the lesson, the Republicans are behind the eight ball in 08. Unless they take an active role in giving GWB&co. the ole heave ho like the GOP did with Nixon in 1974. But we can see in test of strength #1 regarding the Iraqi funding, the GOP stayed solid GWB.---and that alone will doom them on 08 if they don't change and fast.

But 2008 is also the democrats to lose, but I am guessing that external not internal events will control 2008. And many in the 2008 Presidential race will kill themselves off by betting on the wrong horses.

George Will may be intelligent---but he flat out does not understand people---but he always manages to fool himself into thinking he was right---especially when his prediction is 180 degrees off the mark.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Butterbean
George Bush was a poison pill for Republicans and I don't know if the party has any identity because they keep spewing out RINO's. Democrat's are like a crazed, irrational bitch mother driving the family nuts and the Republicans are like the whipped dad trying to be "nice" and getting along - which backfires miserably. Mr "compassionate conservative" has flushed GOP down the potty. Mexico craps on Bush, the CIA craps on Bush, State Dept Craps on Bush the media craps on Bush, Iran craps on Bush, Chavez craps on Bush, NASA craps on Bush Pelosi, Murtha and Democrats crap on Bush, the whole world craps - and he does nothing except spew the same garbled, braindead aphorisms. Truth is the Republicans had it made in the shade and they blew it big time. They don't articulate anything and they don't fight. I dopn't see anyone who has a spark on the horizen. The bitch-mom Democrats and the whipped-dad Republicans are running us off the road and there is a massive crack-up coming. This country doesn't have men anymore.

One thing that drives crazy people nuts is their panic at the fact that not everybody else is also similarly insane.

 

[jpeyton]

The momentum is in the Democrats favor going into 2008; I predict no significant change in House numbers, with a Democrat taking the White House.

The country is ready to give them a good shot at making things right in Iraq and domestically. The Republicans might get some seats back in 2010 if the Democrats fail to deliver by then.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
many of the Democrat victories in 2006 were very shallow.

It would not take much for the Republicans to retake the house in 2008.

But that would most likely require a victory at the top that carries on down the line.

As Will points out there are 61 Democrats sitting in ?Republican? seats. A strong Republican victory at the top and they most likely gain most of those back.

I believe that in 1996 Republicans lost a lot of the ?Democrat? seats that they had won in 1994.

Essentially Democrat voters pissed off at Clinton put a Republican in office and then changed their mind. Could see a repeat in 2008.

Originally posted by: jpeyton
The momentum is in the Democrats favor going into 2008; I predict no significant change in House numbers, with a Democrat taking the White House.

The country is ready to give them a good shot at making things right in Iraq and domestically. The Republicans might get some seats back in 2010 if the Democrats fail to deliver by then.

I hope the Sheeple have woken up to how the Republicans really feel about them like the poster above that the Country is "Shallow" and that they get a whole lot madder at Bush and his supporters for all their lies about Iraq and everything else a lot more than they were "pissed" about a Clinton blowjob.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Rain, many of the Democrat victories in 2006 were very shallow. It would not take much for the Republicans to retake the house in 2008. But that would most likely require a victory at the top that carries on down the line.

As Will points out there are 61 Democrats sitting in ?Republican? seats. A strong Republican victory at the top and they most likely gain most of those back.

I believe that in 1996 Republicans lost a lot of the ?Democrat? seats that they had won in 1994. Essentially Democrat voters pissed off at Clinton put a Republican in office and then changed their mind. Could see a repeat in 2008.

I guess I disagree that seats are "Republican" just because Bush won them in 2004. The whole "red state" vs "blue state" situation is not nearly as static as Will seems to suggest, things change over time...why is Bush's win in 2004 more indicative of the way a district leans than Democrat X's win in the district in 2006?

 

[strummer]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Finally point, in the 50s the house went back and forth. It might be a good thing for us to return to those days. This would keep one side from going off the deep end.
The more worried they are about losing power the more likely they are to do the right thing.

This is wishful thinking on Will's part. He looks at historical precedence and patterns and completely ignores what is going to be the defining issue that not only is going to shape the 2008 elections, but will also likely shape public opinion for several cycles after that.

Iraq trumps everything. If we are still there and 2 to 3 Soldiers and Marines keep getting killed every day, then the GOP is doomed electorally speaking. There is no hiding KIA's with a slick ad campaign, there is no hiding the fact that Bush and his GOP enablers have made the greatest strategic error in the history of American foreign policy. The GOP's standard bearer in 2008 is very likely to be someone who is supporting the continued occupation effort. GOP congressional candidates that support their party's Presidential nominee in this respect are going to be swept under the rug by a wave of independent voters who are livid about Iraq. Do you really think that GOP challengers are going to be able to unseat sitting Democrats whom voted to put time tables on an Iraq withdrawal? Time tables or benchmarks that an overwhelming majority of the electorate support? You can't win elections by telling 65 or 70% of the American public that they are wrong about the most important issue facing the nation. The public has made up their minds about Iraq and no campaign rhetoric or ad buy is going to change these sentiments.

The Democrats are going to pick up seats in both the House and the Senate. In the Senate, Sununu is gone and so is the open Colorado seat. The GOP might catch a break and have Al Franken get the DFL/Democratic nod in Minnesota and I don't think Franken can beat Coleman, although in this climate anybody who supports Bush on Iraq (like Coleman does) is going to have a real rough ride. In the House, every remaining member of the GOP caucus with districts located above the Mason Dixon line is going to have a real battle on their hands. Ditto to a somewhat lesser extent with most suburban GOP seats in the midwest, mountain west and the west coast. The GOP will pick up a couple of the fluke seats in the South that they just lost, like Delay's old seat and the Foley seat, and the two Georgia seats that Dems just barely won will probably go GOP.

Politcal historians will look back on Bush's Presidency and be note how close the GOP came to establishing a permanent, dominant majority in the early 2000's. September 11th is just the kind of event that can cause a ground swelling shift of voting patterns and public sentiment (we saw evidence of this in the atypical midterms of 2002). Then Bush decides to go to Iraq and all bets are off. Iraq trumps even 9/11, because Iraq was a tragedy that we foisted upon ourselves. It needed never have happened and there is no one to blame but our President, his party and ultimately ourselves.

I don't know how George Will could possibly come to the conclusions he came to. He seems to forget Rick Santorum losing by 20 points in Pennsylvania last Fall. He forgets how seemingly popular Lincoln Chaffee got thrown under the bus and was easily unseated in Rhode Island. Ditto DeWine in Ohio. He forgets that Jim Webb beat George Allen in Virginia. Yes - Virginia - even I can't believe that happened. He completely underestimates the impact the Iraq war is having on the American public. Maybe this is because he was such a big cheerleader for it and he has cognitive dissonance. I don't know.

Will forgets that Democrats didn't lose a single seat, House - Senate - Governors, across the country and the reason they didn't was because of Iraq. Well take a midterm election where independent turnout is down like it typically is, then extrapolate that to a Presidential election. If we experience the same turnout we saw in 2004 and independents are still upset about Iraq, then the GOP is in for a really, really long night in November 2008. It will be worse for them than last November.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
George Will has been around for a long time and knows a great deal.

I think he makes sense.

If Republicans can win in 2008 then they most likely retake the house.
If not then the 2010 mid year elections should give them another great shot.

As he points out there are 61 Democrats sitting in districts won by Bush in 2004, those would be the places Republicans aim to take back.
Link

Tom Cole earned a PhD in British history from the University of Oklahoma, intending to become a college professor, but he came to his senses and to a zest for politics, and now, in just his third term in the House of Representatives, he is chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. As such, he is charged with recruiting the candidates and honing the tactics that will transform Speaker Nancy Pelosi back into House minority leader. "We are looking," says Cole, speaking unminced words about the Republican Party, "like a beaten-down stock." Nevertheless, he is sanguine regarding 2008: "The positioning is good for us" because "we don't have to conquer new territory, we have to reclaim old territory."

That is, 61 Democrats represent districts that George W. Bush carried in 2004. A 16-seat gain in 2008 would restore Republican control to the House.

Consider the Second Congressional District in Kansas. Jim Ryun held the seat easily for five terms. In 2006, he lost to Nancy Boyda, who won with just 50.6 percent. In 2008, President Bush will not be, as he was in 2006, a burden at the top of the ticket. And Kansas's popular Republican senator, Pat Roberts, will be on the ticket. And Kansas's popular Democratic governor, Kathleen Sebelius, who helped Democrats down the ballot in 2006, will be in the middle of her second term.

Might Democrats gain some seats they nearly won in 2006 -- for example, the then-open Chicago area seat previously held for 16 terms by Republican Henry Hyde? The Democrats' novice candidate, Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in the Iraq war, got 48.65 percent against Republican Peter Roskam. Cole says he hopes the Democrats will throw resources at that seat because they will be wasting dollars, given that they could not win it as an open seat. He is too polite to add that they could not win it with Bush as a weight in Republican saddles.

Although Cole is playing to win, and expects to win, in 2008, retaking the House may be, he says, "a two-step dance for us." He thinks Republicans have a good chance of winning control even if they do not win the White House. He notes that after Republicans lost 48 House seats in 1958, they gained 21 seats in 1960, when John Kennedy was narrowly elected president. And if Republicans do not win control of the House in 2008 and a Democrat is elected president, they have a really excellent chance of capturing the House in 2010, because the party that wins the presidency usually loses House seats in the next midterm election.

Cole wishes he "could make every [Republican] donor watch C-SPAN," to see what House Democrats are doing. He can't, but he savors such attention-riveting events as Pelosi's trip to Syria, which he thinks was so "wonderful" for Republicans that he would gladly finance a trip by her to Iran.

The last time House Republicans suffered a defeat as large as they did in 2006 (30 seats lost) was in the 1974 post-Watergate election (48 seats lost). That was the year their third-ranking leader was born -- Florida's Adam Putnam, the House Republican Conference chairman.

Still, Democrats have their smallest House majority since 1955. And Republicans still hold 10 more seats than they did at their peak during Ronald Reagan's presidency. This, in spite of the fact that Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and his winning margin of 2.5 points in 2004 was the smallest in history for a reelected president.

Cole is planning as though Republicans will have to retake the House the unusual way they did in 1994 -- forming a majority without the help of a Republican president and perhaps without much help from the Republican presidential candidate. Because perhaps 21 states are going to hold presidential primaries on Feb. 5, 2008, some states that "we are not going to carry" in the 2008 presidential election (he does not list any, but surely he has in mind such states as Illinois and New York) are going to be important in selecting the Republican nominee.

But Republican House candidates may get considerable help from the Democrats' presidential candidate. Cole thinks that Democrats, who he says have more litmus tests for their presidential candidates than Republicans do, are so convinced that they are going to win the White House, they are not resisting what they enjoy surrendering to -- the tug from the party's left.

Americans seem to like the government at least somewhat divided. They are apt to have that for a while.

Finally point, in the 50s the house went back and forth. It might be a good thing for us to return to those days. This would keep one side from going off the deep end.
The more worried they are about losing power the more likely they are to do the right thing.

Major case of Repub wishful thinking and Poofjohn's delusion of grandeur. The only thing of the deep end is the party that preaches morality and passes on it's practice.

 

[chucky2]

Originally posted by: Butterbean
George Bush was a poison pill for Republicans and I don't know if the party has any identity because they keep spewing out RINO's. Democrat's are like a crazed, irrational bitch mother driving the family nuts and the Republicans are like the whipped dad trying to be "nice" and getting along - which backfires miserably. Mr "compassionate conservative" has flushed GOP down the potty. Mexico craps on Bush, the CIA craps on Bush, State Dept Craps on Bush the media craps on Bush, Iran craps on Bush, Chavez craps on Bush, NASA craps on Bush Pelosi, Murtha and Democrats crap on Bush, the whole world craps - and he does nothing except spew the same garbled, braindead aphorisms. Truth is the Republicans had it made in the shade and they blew it big time. They don't articulate anything and they don't fight. I dopn't see anyone who has a spark on the horizen. The bitch-mom Democrats and the whipped-dad Republicans are running us off the road and there is a massive crack-up coming. This country doesn't have men anymore.

I read that twice and then I finally got it...

...even more scary is that I largely agree with it.

Forget Democrat or Republican, we need someone like a diplomatic Nick Nolte like character with an understanding of econ to run, just to bring a sense of someone from the common class who's smart enough and doesn't put up with sh1t to get the country back on track.

All the candidates are fake. Where did Ross Perot go? He may have not told you what you wanted to hear, but at least you know he believed it, could explain it, and where you stood with him.

Chuck

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: chucky2
we need someone like a diplomatic Nick Nolte like character with an understanding of econ to run, just to bring a sense of someone from the common class who's smart enough and doesn't put up with sh1t to get the country back on track.

Chuck

Nick Nolte for President

 

[Lemon law]

After tip toeing around the issue this thread seems to be lurching to the conclusion that the enemy is political spin. Elevated to a unprecedented level by GWB&co. and Karl Rove.

Its interesting to note that there are two issues where the spin machine has totally flopped. The most obvious is Katrina which was handled so badly that it simply can't be spun in a positive way. So the strategy becomes find a scapegoat and refuse to talk about it. The other was the Terry Shiavo issue
where eager Republicans even recalled a vacationing President and congress to save a brain dead woman. And then realized to their own horror that they were on the wrong side of public opinion. And again decided to simply not talk about it.

But the one issue that this nation does need to honestly talk about and confront is the issue of Iraq. And a political cartoon this week kind of puts its into perspective in two windows. The first is a 2003 Elephant saying " Lets invade Iraq with no regard of the consequences." And the second is a 2007 donkey saying " Lets withdraw from Iraq with no regard of the consequences."

And our problem is that we can't have an honest debate on Iraq because of all the political spin. And worse yet, we can only look at two possible answers when there are a wide range of options regarding Iraq.

Then we have this totally ridiculous thread trying to predict where the electorate will be far in the future based on past trends. When we should all be looking at now---because now will be generating the consequences that the election of 2008 will be decided on.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
many of the Democrat victories in 2006 were very shallow.

It would not take much for the Republicans to retake the house in 2008.

But that would most likely require a victory at the top that carries on down the line.

As Will points out there are 61 Democrats sitting in ?Republican? seats. A strong Republican victory at the top and they most likely gain most of those back.

I believe that in 1996 Republicans lost a lot of the ?Democrat? seats that they had won in 1994.

Essentially Democrat voters pissed off at Clinton put a Republican in office and then changed their mind. Could see a repeat in 2008.

Originally posted by: jpeyton
The momentum is in the Democrats favor going into 2008; I predict no significant change in House numbers, with a Democrat taking the White House.

The country is ready to give them a good shot at making things right in Iraq and domestically. The Republicans might get some seats back in 2010 if the Democrats fail to deliver by then.

I hope the Sheeple have woken up to how the Republicans really feel about them like the poster above that the Country is "Shallow" and that they get a whole lot madder at Bush and his supporters for all their lies about Iraq and everything else a lot more than they were "pissed" about a Clinton blowjob.

Gee Dave... remember in 1994 when the media kept talking about "angry white men" did you talk about sheeple then?

 

[chucky2]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: chucky2
we need someone like a diplomatic Nick Nolte like character with an understanding of econ to run, just to bring a sense of someone from the common class who's smart enough and doesn't put up with sh1t to get the country back on track.

Chuck

Nick Nolte for President

That pic is priceless...

I was talking about a Nolte character though, not the man himself.

Chuck

 

[Jhhnn]

9/11 and the associated fearmongering kept Dubya from being a one term pres, and it's now doubled back on top of him and fellow repubs in the form of Iraq... Not to mention the corruption, incompetence and lies of the Repub machine over the last 6 years...

Repubs will need something stronger than the current "they're just as bad!" meme to get anywhere, other than bent over and reamed...

They've set the bar extremely low for Dems to actually do better, which was a symptom of their greed and arrogance. "Permanent Republican Majority"? Hardly- they'll be lucky to stay afloat over the next several years...

 

[Lemon law]

If there is a congressional v. executive struggle, with the executive staying stuck on stupid, the GOP will be sorely tested. Will they stay true and blue to a floundering GWB&co., or will they finally do the rational and help grease the skids for a lame duck Pres? The heat will be turned to the boiling point by the time the primaries process starts in very early 08.

Woe be to any incumbent GOP member that guesses wrongly on that issue---and they may not even win their own primary.

 

[compuwiz1]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: chucky2
we need someone like a diplomatic Nick Nolte like character with an understanding of econ to run, just to bring a sense of someone from the common class who's smart enough and doesn't put up with sh1t to get the country back on track.

Chuck

Nick Nolte for President

Hey, that's not right. He went to high school with my Aunt and my Mom. Hehehe, they both thought he was a piece of sh!t back then, and would never amount to anything. Omaha Nebraska, FTL.