Republicans' best hope of 2008 victory: the Democrats
I've long been amused at those of all political persuasions who think that President Bush's unpopularity necessarily foreshadows a Democratic victory in the 2008 presidential election. Although I'm sure that the Democratic nominee- whoever it turns out to be- will run against him, the fact of the matter is that Dubyah won't be a candidate next year.
But Hillary Clinton will- and she will very likely be the Democratic nominee. And poll after poll shows upwards of forty percent of the electorate stating baldly that under no conceivable circumstances would they vote for her. Hillary Rodham Clinton, not George W. Bush, will be the issue in 2008- and the fact of the matter is that Hillary is simply not a viable candidate. No candidate with her numbers at this early stage of the game could be.
Now the liberal Boston Herald has noticed yet another reason for Republicans not to despair of retaining the White House in 2008. That reason is not exactly news; the news is that even the Boston Herald has picked up on it.
The fact of the matter is that the Democratic presidential candidates as a group- and the Democratic party as a whole- have totally lost touch with the American Center.
Now, the Democrats haven't exactly been creatures of the Center for some time. Bill Clinton's era of "triangulation," in which Republican issues were routinely co-opted and moderation could be said by people other than members of "main-stream" media themselves so far to the Left as to have a thoroughly skewed view of such things to be anything but laughable as a description of the Democratic agenda, ended with the Clinton presidency. The failure of the Democratic attempt to steal Florida and the presidency in 2000 created an atmosphere in which sour grapes and spite replaced strategic thinking as the stuff of which Democratic behavior was based. A president with two Ivy League degrees, a higher Yale GPA than Al Gore, and a higher IQ as measured by the military than John Kerry was assumed, as a matter of standard Democratic rhetoric, to not only be inarticulate but actually stupid. The failure of not only our own intelligence agencies, but of every intelligence agency in the world, to perceive that Saddam Hussein was no longer actively seeking to build additional weapons of mass destruction became, as a matter of Democratic orthodoxy, not a failure of intelligence, but somehow a deliberate lie on the part of a president who somehow knew that Saddam was doing no such thing. Bile so completely distorted the Democratic perception of not only President Bush but of the entire American political climate that hatred of George W. Bush became, in essence, the entire Democratic agenda in the 2004 election. Its failure taught the Democrats nothing.
Insulated from any need to interact with political reality, the Democrats have since been free to indulge in agitation for nationalized health care with no obligation to acknowledge- much less address- its failure elsewhere in the Western world. Silly and essentially unserious folks like filmmaker Michael Moore feel free to take pot-shots at the many legitimate shortcomings of the status quo (exaggerating and even inventing them when it suited their purposes) without any obligation to address the consequences of government rationed health care- including the long waiting lists for routine diagnostic procedures which cost so many Canadians, for example, their lives every year.
Yet the American people are not stupid; as unpopular as the war in Iraq is, and as vulnerable as the incompetence and blundering of the current administration has made the Republican party on the issue of the war, in order to turn it into an issue which will enable Democrats to win at the polls they are going to have to explain to the electorate how they are going to deal with the drastic consequences of leaving Iraq without having ensured that our national security objectives and the welfare of the region are provided for. The current state of the debate on the war (such as it is) in the Democratic party is such that it is going to be very difficult for the candidate who prevails not to enter the general election campaign committed to a position patently incompatible with America's strategic interests and the long-term peace of the region.
It's hard for me to imagine a Democratic party in 2008 able to present the American people with either a foreign or a domestic policy even remotely in contact with reality. Hatred of George W. Bush and an ideological commitment to the very welfare state from which Bill Clinton realized the Democratic party had to divorce itself will not translate readily into a platform the American people, facing a sober choice between it and a more realistic and responsible alternative, are apt to find appealing.
As the article linked to above indicates, the Democrats are even marginalizing the centrists in their own party. Groups like Bill Clinton's Democratic Leadership Council have comparatively little influence anymore; it's the extremist ideologues who are driving the Democratic debate, and who almost certainly will lead the Democratic party into the next election.
No. There really is no reason for Republicans to spare of winning in 2008. None at all. Not as long as they have their secret weapon- the one that re-elected a vulnerable President Bush in 2004, and still promises to render every GOP weakness irrelevant once again in 2008.
Whatever their own struggles and shortcomings may be, the Republicans can always count on the Democrats.
But Hillary Clinton will- and she will very likely be the Democratic nominee. And poll after poll shows upwards of forty percent of the electorate stating baldly that under no conceivable circumstances would they vote for her. Hillary Rodham Clinton, not George W. Bush, will be the issue in 2008- and the fact of the matter is that Hillary is simply not a viable candidate. No candidate with her numbers at this early stage of the game could be.
Now the liberal Boston Herald has noticed yet another reason for Republicans not to despair of retaining the White House in 2008. That reason is not exactly news; the news is that even the Boston Herald has picked up on it.
The fact of the matter is that the Democratic presidential candidates as a group- and the Democratic party as a whole- have totally lost touch with the American Center.
Now, the Democrats haven't exactly been creatures of the Center for some time. Bill Clinton's era of "triangulation," in which Republican issues were routinely co-opted and moderation could be said by people other than members of "main-stream" media themselves so far to the Left as to have a thoroughly skewed view of such things to be anything but laughable as a description of the Democratic agenda, ended with the Clinton presidency. The failure of the Democratic attempt to steal Florida and the presidency in 2000 created an atmosphere in which sour grapes and spite replaced strategic thinking as the stuff of which Democratic behavior was based. A president with two Ivy League degrees, a higher Yale GPA than Al Gore, and a higher IQ as measured by the military than John Kerry was assumed, as a matter of standard Democratic rhetoric, to not only be inarticulate but actually stupid. The failure of not only our own intelligence agencies, but of every intelligence agency in the world, to perceive that Saddam Hussein was no longer actively seeking to build additional weapons of mass destruction became, as a matter of Democratic orthodoxy, not a failure of intelligence, but somehow a deliberate lie on the part of a president who somehow knew that Saddam was doing no such thing. Bile so completely distorted the Democratic perception of not only President Bush but of the entire American political climate that hatred of George W. Bush became, in essence, the entire Democratic agenda in the 2004 election. Its failure taught the Democrats nothing.
Insulated from any need to interact with political reality, the Democrats have since been free to indulge in agitation for nationalized health care with no obligation to acknowledge- much less address- its failure elsewhere in the Western world. Silly and essentially unserious folks like filmmaker Michael Moore feel free to take pot-shots at the many legitimate shortcomings of the status quo (exaggerating and even inventing them when it suited their purposes) without any obligation to address the consequences of government rationed health care- including the long waiting lists for routine diagnostic procedures which cost so many Canadians, for example, their lives every year.
It's true that the war in Iraq is unpopular. But there's precious little discussion among Democrats about how to extricate ourselves from Iraq without touching off a genocide that will make the current state of affairs look like a picnic; without greatly strengthening the hand of Al Quaeda not only in Iraq, but in the entire Middle East; without creating the huge likelihood of a Kurdish independence movement in the north of Iraq with a strong prospect of touching off an active movement on the part of Pakistani Kurds to secede and join in an attempt to create a pan-Kurdish state- without, in short, creating a scenario in which what is essentially an anti-insurgency movement in Iraq and a sectarian struggle among various Islamic factions becoming a region-wide international conflict. But getting out of Iraq- and getting out of Iraq now- is the beginning and the end of the rhetoric of most of the Democratic candidates (Joe Biden is, at least to an extent, a refreshing exception). Even well-qualified and (one would assume) well-informed candidates like Bill Richardson engage in rhetoric more at home in the zanier strata of the Far Left than in a political party with ambitions to actually govern. Despite being rebuked by the Pentagon, Hillary Clinton continues to ignore the question of the consequences of a precipitate withdrawal from Iraq and insist instead on a detailed plan for abandoning our commitment there without regard to the consequences.
Yet the American people are not stupid; as unpopular as the war in Iraq is, and as vulnerable as the incompetence and blundering of the current administration has made the Republican party on the issue of the war, in order to turn it into an issue which will enable Democrats to win at the polls they are going to have to explain to the electorate how they are going to deal with the drastic consequences of leaving Iraq without having ensured that our national security objectives and the welfare of the region are provided for. The current state of the debate on the war (such as it is) in the Democratic party is such that it is going to be very difficult for the candidate who prevails not to enter the general election campaign committed to a position patently incompatible with America's strategic interests and the long-term peace of the region.
It's hard for me to imagine a Democratic party in 2008 able to present the American people with either a foreign or a domestic policy even remotely in contact with reality. Hatred of George W. Bush and an ideological commitment to the very welfare state from which Bill Clinton realized the Democratic party had to divorce itself will not translate readily into a platform the American people, facing a sober choice between it and a more realistic and responsible alternative, are apt to find appealing.
As the article linked to above indicates, the Democrats are even marginalizing the centrists in their own party. Groups like Bill Clinton's Democratic Leadership Council have comparatively little influence anymore; it's the extremist ideologues who are driving the Democratic debate, and who almost certainly will lead the Democratic party into the next election.
No. There really is no reason for Republicans to spare of winning in 2008. None at all. Not as long as they have their secret weapon- the one that re-elected a vulnerable President Bush in 2004, and still promises to render every GOP weakness irrelevant once again in 2008.
Whatever their own struggles and shortcomings may be, the Republicans can always count on the Democrats.
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