Desire is strong in Dems to impeach Desire is strong in Dems to impeach

Arizona Republic article suggests that Desire is strong in Dems to impeach. The saner heads, of course, are playing this down. Rep. Conyers has been extremely vocal about this, holding mock hearings a couple of months ago, and he released a 350-page "investigative report" full of moonbat consipriacy theories last week. Minority Leader Pelosi apparently called him on the carpet for it - but if the Democrats regain the House, he will most likely be the Judiciary Chairman, and she won't be able to stop him.

My prediction is that if the Democrats do retake the House, and Conyers, as the new Judiciary Chairman has his way, and gets his impeachment hearings, he won't get his impeachment, and the Democrats will go into minority status for at least the next twenty years. A big part of the problem is that in order to retake the House, most of their new seats would be from districts that voted for George Bush in 2000 and 2004.

Here in CO, before the 2004 election, the Republicans had a 5-2 majority in our Congressional delegation, and the Democrats have a decent chance at reversing this in 2006. John Salazar won the fairly conservative Western Slope by appearing significantly more conservative than his brother running for the Senate. The Democrats have a decent chance at winning two more seats this time - in particular, Ed Permutter has a very good chance to win the seat being vacated by Bob Beauprez in his run for Governor. Permutter has a very strong reputation from his time in the state legislature as being moderate and working well with Republicans. If all three Democrats win this election, which is very possible right now, they are likely to be crushed in 2008 if they vote for impeachment, and even somewhat likely to lose even if they don't (though Salazar has enough swing votes to maybe protect himself if he votes against impeachment, as I predict he would).

These are precisely the types of seats that the Democrats need to win and keep the House. Their voter registrations are split almost evenly between the parties, voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, and are highly likely to punish any Democrat who votes for impeachment based on what is in reality purely a political dispute, and might even be punished if they vote against it.

I should add that, absent finding true venality in the Bush Adminisration, of which there is absolutely no evidence yet, the Senate, even if the Democrats retake it, won't convict either Bush or Cheney on Articles of Impeachment voted out by a Democratic House. There is zero chance of this, because the Democrats are not about to get the 2/3 required - they will be lucky to get a bare majority in the upcoming election.