Should Kerry appoint Republicans to his cabinet if it could win the Senate

hear me out. Basically, I'm talking about only moderate Republican senators from states with Democratic governors. The top 3 I can see are Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter (if he wins reelection). Give them some cabinet position where they wouldn't be much different than a Democrat. And this is only if it gains us the Senate.

Should such a plan be considered?

And I'm surprised you'd think they would be. Also, the inducements to them to stay would be mind-boggling.

Second, we don't win and then hand off the victory to people who are neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring.

I'm ranking this down there with the Republican Veep mental instability.

was qualified for.

Unfortunately Postmaster General isnt in the cabinet anymore.

...reguardless of their political affiliation.

suggesting that we need to have some Lite-Republican on the ticket to win! :puke:
You might win some moderates but you'll lose me and a lot of other REAL Democrats. The Democratic Party needs to be more Democratic, not more Republican!

and only if they are decent people.

We can't count on whichever Democrat that is appointed by a Democratic Governor winning election required after the appointment.

would also get him out of the senate and the democrats his senate seat.

The guy was 100% behind the Iraq War.

Basically... State, Defense, Treasurey, AG, and Homeland Security should all be democrats. But below that, it's acceptable to have a decent Republican in one or two positions.

His part in the JFK coverup was unforgiveable.

When the Republicans take the reigns, like they did in 2000, they fire EVERYONE, and I mean everyone who doesn't have an elephant saying "insert here" tatooed on his ass. You can't get a job licking toilets in the basement of the Ford Building if you're not a Republican, and that ain't no lie. It's been that way since Nixon, I'm told.

Over the decades, they have built up a partisan bloc within the executive branch which is the scourge of Democratic regimes--Carter might as well have been locked in a cage with baboons for all the shit that got flung at him from within his own administration; most of us remember how Clinton fared it.

When someone they don't like is in charge, it's a giant sieve of damaging and inopportunely released information. When someone they do like is in there, they create one of the most dangerously secretive societies outside of a college fraternity. Want to look up how a regulatory decsision was made? The .pdf will be on the website in five years or so. Try to slap a FOIA request on them? It takes two years to "process." Want to sit in on public deliberations? Hope you brought your secret decoder ring, otherwise you can sit in the hall. No Democrats, black people, sodomites or R-rated movie fans need apply, 'cause they've got your name and they know who you are.

When they want to drink, they cordon off the bar so nobody can hear the small talk. When one of their buddies comes to town, they cordon off the Mayflower and make Ted Koppel walk a block and a half to the side entrance of the ABC offices. You don't have to be qualified, you just have to know the secret handshake. They put a damned barbeque salesman in charge of Indian Affairs. He's sending his underlings to $700 a day motivational speaker sessions while American Indian kids wonder if the damned bus is going to be fixed in time for school that day.

They are the grease for the gears of largest criminal machine I've yet seen in my depressingly short lifetime.

And what did they get for their fine, opaque, undemocratic efforts? The punk in charge A-76ed their asses straight out onto the pavement with all the rest of the lunatics who no longer have health insurance, though most of them haven't been invited to leave, yet. And they don't give a shit, because Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are still teaching them their brownshirt fight songs while they sit glommed up in traffic on Route 66, nervously watching the planes fly overhead.

Get them the fuck out of this town. Every last goddamned one of them. And bring the tar and feathers, and rails. Because if you don't, the next time around they'll be back with chains and ropes.

...for the President to choose a single Cabinet member to be from the opposing party. President Clinton followed it with his Secretary of Defense. President Bush followed it with his Secretary of Transportation.

Regardless of any Senate shifting, Kerry should do the same. Remember: we are the party of civility. If anyone is going to break this tradition, it ought not to be us.

- C.D.

Kerry has worked with an fought along side of on a number of issues.

Kerry and Snowe joined together to fight to get better health insurance coverage for fishermen working in the fishing industry in New England, and in particular in Maine. And of course working with Mc Cain on the Vietnam POW issue.

I'd support appointing individual moderate Republicans but more so on their merits than as part of a strategy to take back the Senate. There are also plenty of good Dems who would make awesome Cabinet Secretaries and I'd hate to keep them from it... I'd say one or two moderate dems if they'd agree to the job and the standards Kerry would impose...