Look at the current polls. Not only is Bush going up in approval, and not only is his approval rating higher than either Reagan's or Clinton's were one year before re-election, but Bush is popular and supported by a majority of women and a majority of young people aged 18-30. Young people in particular are highly supportive of the war in Iraq. There's also no disconnect between men and women on Bush anymore.
Not only will Arnold Schwartzenegger be sworn in as Governor of California in two weeks, but the Republicans just took the Kentucky governorship. Even if Democrats keep Mississippi (we'll probably find that out in the morning), it'll be by inches.
There is no way not to say that Democrats are in deep trouble as a party. I think Andrew Sullivan has a letter that explains why this is so, and explains it very well. He also quotes Dick Gephardt, one of the few truly sane candidates running for the Democratic nomination:
"We have to prevail," Mr. Gephardt told reporters. "We have to bring democracy to Iraq. We cannot fail. If you think Afghanistan was a terrorist training camp, you wait. If you leave Iraq, it will be a terrorist training camp the likes of which would make Afghanistan look simple. In our own deep self-interest, to prevent future acts of terrorism, we have to succeed."Sure, Gephardt, too, proceeded to criticize Mr. Bush. "We need a president who can get the world to work together with us to solve this problem," Mr. Gephardt said.
I increasingly believe that Gephardt is the Democrats' only chance for nominating an electable candidate, someone I could actually consider voting for anyway. He, like Joe Lieberman, represents the sane branch of the loyal opposition. Sully's also completely correct: even though I disagree with Gephardt that we haven't handled things right diplomatically, his is an honorable stance. Criticize the President, but be specific, and tell us what specifically you would do differently from what has been done. Don't sell out the war--or the Iraqi people--just to appease the moonbats and the Bush-hating left.
By the way, Scott Ott notes yet another reason why we can't cut and run on the Iraqi people right now.
Sullivan just sounds scared stupid. It happens.
Most of the Democrats know that we have to stay the course in Iraq.
Kerry/Clark is the ticket that would beat Bush/Cheney. Bush/Powell...?
I don't know Shep. Do you think Kerry can take Dean in the primaries?
Dean has been in the lead pretty consistantly. Plus, Governors have done better than Senators in the past.
Even a supporter of the Republican party shouldn't be happy about the current state of the Democratic party. Unless you're some die hard fanatic who would support the Republicans no matter what. And Dean, I've seen evidence that you aren't this way. You used to support the dems, but then they started to suck, so you started to support the reps. The fact, then, that the dems suck, and continue to grow suckier, should, if anything, distress you. It's a two party system.
I don't have a clue about that, Rosemary. You have a real point about the Senator thing (at least he's over 6';-) But I'm not sure we've seen times such as these.
Dowingba: right on.
Shep: No, I think he's right. Dean has played too hard to the wrong elements in my view, said too many wrong things, and his victory would be very bad in my view.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm on Sully's side.
dowingba,
Well, I'm a diehard Republican and I agree completely with your point. Obviously, I wouldn't want the Democratic Party to have control of our government (see: diehard Republican), but I do NOT want one-party rule, either, even if it's my guys in charge. I've said many times that a coherent opposition is what keeps the majority party honest. We need another voice in the debate, challenging our ideas, presenting alternatives, and pointing out our errors in order to keep growing philosophically and intellectually. If the arena of debate is an echo chamber, why try? One-party rule is a system where everyone loses.
shep,
Regarding the Senator/Governor point...sure, there are certain aspects of today that are different from yesterday, but I think there might be structural reasons Governors have been preferred over Senators in the past. If there are structural reasons, and it's not just a sample size issue, I don't see how any recent political changes would have affected the situation. Can you clarify this point?
Dean:
I'm not someone who puts much stock in polls, especially this far out from an election. Also, these polls don't reflect the recent release of strong third quarter GDP stats.
That said, I question your characterization of those polls from the Washington Post. The WaPo/ABC News poll I saw here suggests a somewhat different interpretation.
Allow me to quote the inestimable Ruy Teixeira:
One thing to keep in mind: when people say that they are worse off since Bush took office, the poll doesn't make it clear that people will hold this POTUS responsible.
And, like I said before, I'm not sure that this poll fully captures the media splash that occured with the release of the third-quarter GDP stats.
I believe that's the same poll, Ara. It's just that if you follow the link I provided, it takes you to a page where you can get the data broken down by age, sex, party affiliation, region, etc. for the latest numbers.
My points do stand: Bush is popular in all age groups, especially young people, and there's no longer any gender gap. This is a remarkable shift.
As for the rest: you certainly note the opportunities Democrats have to strike at Bush. Especially if Kerry is their nominee. On the other hand, it's easy to make a lot out of that head-to-head matchup stuff, since in the last six months the Democratic candidates have gotten massively more visibility and have been campaigning more openly. So we should expect them to be attracting people more. Most people six months ago would have said, "John Who?" if you'd asked them. Most still would, of course, but guys like Kerry and Dean are more visible now than they used to be. I find it interesting that Kerry's the most popular candidate nationally, and telling that he's the Vietnam vet in the group. We make fun of him for mentioning it a lot, but it seems to be a very good strategy for him. I find it equally telling that while he's the Democratic front-runner among the general voting populace, he's not in front among Democrats.
On the other hand, Bush hasn't really even started campaigning.
The rash of bad press coverage on the war has been a problem, and I sense now that what Democrats most hope for is to be able to paint the war as going badly. I expect that tactic to backfire severely on them if they push it too hard, but we'll see.
...the Democratic candidates have gotten massively more visibility and have been campaigning more openly...On the other hand, Bush hasn't really even started campaigning.
You do you know how many fund-raising events he's already done, right? And how many millions of dollars those events have pulled in?
The rash of bad press coverage on the war has been a problem
There you go again.
Correct me if I'm wrong: if our boys are being attacked and killed everyday and the press doesn't cover it, then our boys would still be alive?
I think Bush will be extremely tough to beat. However, I'm not interested in nominating Bush-lite for an opponent.
I strongly disagree with Gephardt's protectionist policies. I disagree with Dean's support for partial-birth abortion and the death penalty.
If the nominee is to be a Democrat who supported the war, then I would go for Lieberman. Lieberman in some ways might be the most likely to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lieberman irked me for siding with Jeb Bush and the Florida legislature on the Schiavo case.
Whoever the Democratic nominee is will get pounded, under the radar, by the Republicans over gays. I say under the radar, because I don't think Bush has any heart for gay-bashing.
Ara: Fundraising events aren't public events, and don't impact the general public as such.
As for Iraq, you know as well as I do that I never, ever said that the press reporting casualties was a problem. I said that lopsided, unbalanced, sloppy reporting was a problem, and was killing our boys. Stop playing these straw man games.
By any historical standards, for any war, our casualties are stunningly light. Most people don't realize that, because the press reports have been so unrelentingly negative and hyped up most of the time, but it's still an indisputable fact. In the meantime, every day, in every measurable way, Iraq gets better, and that receives very little coverage at all. That's the problem, and that's what's killing our boys, by emboldening our enemies and demoralizing our troops. People on both sides of the aisle recognize that; I wish you would too, and would stop twisting and distorting my words.
It's increasingly less of an issue as I see it, though, because the press is getting better. It's about damned time.
"Regarding the Senator/Governor point...sure, there are certain aspects of today that are different from yesterday, but I think there might be structural reasons Governors have been preferred over Senators in the past. If there are structural reasons, and it's not just a sample size issue, I don't see how any recent political changes would have affected the situation. Can you clarify this point?"
Sam, I guess I'm saying that the difference isn’t political; it is our state of mind. And psychology trumps "structure" every time. I don't think we even realize how much 9-11 has affected us. To me, that explains most of the pub's success in the last election cycles and even then, mostly on sympathetic turf.
I don’t think Dean will win the nomination either and he certainly isn’t the best candidate to run against Bush. I’m saying these are dangerous days for prognosticators and most of the conventional thinking and historical precedents may turn out to be worthless in the face of current and future events. But, if we’re still losing people in Iraq and the working class isn’t having an easier go by say, next May, people may wisely start looking for policy and experience (instead of a hypothetical drinkin’ buddy) and that won’t be good for Bush or Republicans of the neo-conservative stripe.
I, too, like an intelligent, effective opposition. As a Californian, I am especially aware of the value of having one set of crooks effectively keeping an eye on the majority crooks.
However, even if the Democrat party dissolved tomorrow, we would have mulitiple voices in political debates. The intelligentsia (small impact) and the media (big impact through press, movies, TV) would continue to be a powerful counter-voice to that of social conservatives, and sometimes to fiscal conservatives.
Although the Republicans often focus on taxes and (these days, less so) spending, one cannot simply analyze parties as fiscally conservative or liberal. For one thing, both parties are willing to use spending to get votes, although the Democrats tend to like it better.
More importantly, both parties also are uneasy combinations of a traditionalist and a libertarian spirit. On some issues, Republicans are for liberty (guns, freedom of the market); elsewhere (sex-related) they tend toward control. The Democrats are the same: on some issues (especially sex-related), they tend libertarian, on others they want control.
For domestic policy issues, the rise of a libertarian viewpoint in the younger generation may be the most interesting development in our politics. The media put a heavy finger tipping the scale in the direction of social liberalism (i.e., libertarianism is good on Democrat issues, not on Republican issues such as guns). Perhaps we are seeing the political effects of a truly TV-oriented generation.
Republicans can be on the right side of this generational trend on several major issues: privatization of Social Security, school choice, even "gay marriage" (pass legislation that does as much as possible to leave the decision up to each state -- one state should not force another to accept its gay marriages).
But let's keep social issues in perspective. Taxes, spending and such social issues will remain very important for everything other than Presidential elections. For the foreseeable future, however, security will dominate presidential elections.
Unfortunately, on security issues, the Democrats have shown that they are so unserious, have so little constructive to say (especially lacking in constructive criticism, which could be very helpful), that we effectively already are living in a one-party system.
Beating President Drunk n' AWOL would be a "cakewalk" for a candidate who would insist that the government be run for the benefit of this country's citizens; hammer the Pretzle on his constant embrace of multiculturalist idiocy
while giving the impression of commitment to established American(and broader Western) culture
("It's a religion of peace","Crapversity is our stench"); had the cash to get that kind of message out. Republicrat/Demopublican, whoevers out can't credibly attack whoevers in, cause it's 90%(or more) the same.
shep,
Actually, I wasn't trying to get at a political split. Accepting that 9/11's impact on the American populace was psychological in nature, why would that affect whether J. Random Governor has been more successful at becoming President than J. Random Senator? I'm not talking about Dean vs. Kerry specifically; I'm going for the general case.
My thought is that the position of Governor is analogous to the Presidency, and the two positions fit the same "executive leadership" model. Senators' job description involves "legislative leadership," which often indicates a different skill set. If I'm right about this, how would 9/11 affect this dynamic?
Sorry, Sam, I missed your premise. I’d say you are way ahead of the electorate in the analytical basis for that choice. I don’t think voters pick a politician because they work in an "executive leadership model” as much as because he is perceived to be an “outsider”, i.e., not part of the Washington establishment. Anti-government demagoguery feeds this phenomenon, especially among conservatives. Governors are less likely to have legislative fingerprints that they can be clubbed with in a campaign.
That (and other advantages) being the case, I’m optimistic that after we all begin to move past being scared stupid by 9-11 and relentless fear mongering and war (assuming we get a break under Bush), people may start to realize that knowing something about the world is a quality to be desired in a president and apply a different metric when they decide how to vote. Then, I’m an optimist.
How exactly does Dean's position differ from Gephardt's?