2008 was supposed to have been an ideal year for the Democratic Party

[Tigermike 3,078]

April 7, 2008

The Year That Wasn’t

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

2008 was supposed to have been an ideal year for the Democratic Party. There's an unpopular, lame-duck Republican president presiding over an iffy economy and an unpopular war. Plus, the Democrats won big in the 2006 elections, and there's no Republican vice president in the race to draw on the power of incumbency.

No wonder that for much of 2007, the polls suggested that the only mystery would be by how much Sen. Hillary Clinton would beat former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the general election.

Indeed, for Democrats not to walk into the presidency in November 2008, the conventional wisdom was that the absolute unthinkable would have to transpire.

And now it almost has.

The Republicans have done something unimaginable in making Sen. John McCain the presumptive nominee. And so have the Democrats in allowing their primary season to drag on.

On the Republican side, McCain, not too long ago, was running far behind in the primaries, and his maverick positions enraged influential conservatives. Yet he proved to be the only Republican candidate who had any chance of capturing moderate and independent voters. And for all their bluster, most die-hard conservatives now seem like they're going to hold their noses and vote Republican.

On the Democratic side, Clinton was stopped cold— but still has yet to be finished off by Obama. Now we can expect months more of infighting. As the Democrats raise tens of millions to destroy themselves, McCain can only sit back and smile.

With Obama the likely nominee, we can also expect to hear more from, and about, his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Reporters no doubt are scanning Rev. Wright's massive corpus of texts and DVDs for more hate speech.

Even before the Wright controversy, the Democratic vote had been split heavily along racial lines — whites for Clinton, blacks for Obama — in certain states, including the all-important Ohio. That's not a good sign for a party that's supposed to be a model of racial transcendence.

Clinton will weaken Obama for months to come. There is no reason to believe the former front-runner will quit the Democratic race soon, even though Obama has an all-but-insurmountable delegate lead.

Clinton has momentum and should win sizably in Pennsylvania later this month. Millions want to vote for her in the remaining primaries. By convention time, she could even end up with a slight lead in the aggregate popular vote.

Clinton has also so far won all the big states that will be in play in the general election. She knows the superdelegates were created precisely for a year like this, and so will argue that these Democratic pros are there to check the exuberance of a liberal electorate that might actually nominate someone untested like Obama. Had Clinton run under Republican primary rules, her wins would have already sealed for her the nomination.

Clinton can also point to polls showing that an Obama nomination will lose more Democrats to McCain than would her own. In other words, she thinks that she has every reason to continue her last-chance campaign, even as it hurts her party, Obama and the Clinton legacy.

Finally, no matter who ultimately becomes the Democratic nominee, it may not be so easy to run a campaign against McCain on the notion that everything is falling apart — or that it is his fault.

It is not at all clear that the Iraq war will get worse, despite the latest news of Shiite in-fighting. Most Iraqis — especially the Sunnis of Anbar — have long wanted the Shiite government to put down the militias of Moqtada al-Sadr. If this happens, the good news of the surge could get better.

At home, we are not yet in a recession, and may avoid one altogether. For now, despite financial jitters, mortgage fears and a weakening American financial position abroad, unemployment, interest rates and inflation all remain fairly low — and could still stay that way through the summer.

Many of our problems like gas prices and deficits transcend politics — or at least were due to bipartisan mistakes of both Congress and the administration and won't play out to partisan advantage. There is no Democratic or Republican answer to stop Iran from getting the bomb, or to bring a roguish but increasingly wealthy and powerful China into the global community.

By late summer, a rested John McCain will try to reassure Americans that he will run their country just like he ran his campaign. A wounded Barack Obama will have won a Pyrrhic nomination. And an angry Hillary Clinton will be gone — but the latest addition to the Clinton legacy not forgotten.

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson040708.html

[WinCrimson 61]

The Presidential election will come down to the wire. Toss-up.

Congressional elections are going to be solidly Democrat, both in the House and Senate.

[otterinbham 0]

The Presidential election will come down to the wire. Toss-up.

Congressional elections are going to be solidly Democrat, both in the House and Senate.

I'm not so sure anymore.

But, yeah, the Democrats are showing their marked ability to shoot themselves in the foot. And I'm pretty sure that the Democrats can't charge that Bush stole the election in 2000 anymore, given how they disenfranchised two entire states and installed superdelegates to potentially thwart the voters.

[Justin5 20]

The Presidential election will come down to the wire. Toss-up.

Congressional elections are going to be solidly Democrat, both in the House and Senate.

I'm not so sure anymore.

But, yeah, the Democrats are showing their marked ability to shoot themselves in the foot. And I'm pretty sure that the Democrats can't charge that Bush stole the election in 2000 anymore, given how they disenfranchised two entire states and installed superdelegates to potentially thwart the voters.

I don't see how you can blame Florida on the Democrats. It was the Republican state leadership that changed the primary date. Still, you can bet the vote will be counted when all is said and done.

Also, citing personal knowledge, the Democrats are primed to pick up 10-16 seats in the House, and at least 5 in the Senate.

For the Presidential, as bad as it looks now for the Democrats fighting - its not all bad. The Democrats are vetting themselves now and uncovering and dealing with whatever dirt the have NOW. The American public has a short memory and it is better to have the problems dealt with now, rather than 2 weeks before the election.

I'm not saying the primary race is necessarily good, but it isn't nearly as bad for the party as some would have you believe. As the saying goes, any press is good press, and the Democrats are dominating the news media because of the close primary race.

[Auburn85 434]

the only way for dems to bring the troops home and to pass healthcare will rely on them picking up several congressional seats.

they won't be able to do either of those things if obama or clinton wins and not enough congressional seats swing in their favor.

2006 was supposed to be the beginning of the end of the war because democrats were going to bring them home.

Now, it's 2008 and we're hearing the same rhetoric. And Bush and McSame pulled off a troop surge with a democratic majority that couldn't even bring the troops home.

But I must say, the democrats are very good at symbolic voting.

[Justin5 20]

the only way for dems to bring the troops home and to pass healthcare will rely on them picking up several congressional seats.

they won't be able to do either of those things if obama or clinton wins and not enough congressional seats swing in their favor.

2006 was supposed to be the beginning of the end of the war because democrats were going to bring them home.

Now, it's 2008 and we're hearing the same rhetoric. And Bush and McSame pulled off a troop surge with a democratic majority that couldn't even bring the troops home.

But I must say, the democrats are very good at symbolic voting.

Congress controls the purse. President controls actually bringing them home. Democrats arent going to commit political suicide by cutting off funding of the troops when the President won't bring them home.

[Auburn85 434]

oh no say it isn't so

a political party putting it's own well being over troops well being.

but again, they went around saying in 2006 saying they would bring them home and they didn't.

That's a fundamental difference between some democrats and McCain or McSame, whichever you want to call him...

McCain is running for president supporting a overwelmingly, unpopular war. So what if he's 71 years old.

He doesn't care about his poltical gains or losses or even poltical suicide.