The White House wasn't won last night
In 1994 the Republicans gained control of the Senate and House in one evening in dramatic style. The Speaker of the House, Democrat Tom Foley lost his seat. And yet in 1996 Bill Clinton whooped the behind of Senator Bob Dole in the presidential election.
The fact is that what is extraordinary isn't that Bush's party suffered losses in the 2006 mid-terms, but that he made such staggering gains in the 2002 mid-terms. That was unheard of - losing seats like this in your second term is par.
If the Democrats are to win in 2008 they are going to have to sort themselves out on Iraq and get some kind of clarity on what they stand for domestically. Nixon was able to win in 1968 and 1972 not by pledging to be conciliatory to communism but by being even more concerned about reds under the bed than the Democrats - and he was the one who pulled them out of Vietnam.
The same isn't possible for the Democrats - they've been seen as soft on security and soft on pretty much anything since the 60s, in fact probably earlier. Going around saying "This strategy of being hard on security isn't working" is only going to work if they can say something convincing about how their alternative doesn't look like surrender. When Democrats pull out of somewhere it looks a lot more like surrender than when a Republican does it - that's just the nature of US politics at the moment.
The idea that this is some sweep of leftist opinion rising internally against US warmongering is simply not credible. Remember that flurry of excitement when Lieberman lost the Connecticut primary to an anti-war Democrat? Well, who's the senator for Connecticut this morning?
The independent Joe Lieberman.
So let's not get carried away. Nancy Pelosi is the biggest winner this week - but she is seen as the very epitome of coastal state, liberal, soft Democrats. If the Democrats are to win the big one in 2008 that's not going to win it for them. The US electorate is the most conservative in the western industrialised world and it's simply not the case that an unpopular war can overturn that.
The GOP candidate in 2008 is not going to be George Bush, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld.
The fact is that what is extraordinary isn't that Bush's party suffered losses in the 2006 mid-terms, but that he made such staggering gains in the 2002 mid-terms. That was unheard of - losing seats like this in your second term is par.
If the Democrats are to win in 2008 they are going to have to sort themselves out on Iraq and get some kind of clarity on what they stand for domestically. Nixon was able to win in 1968 and 1972 not by pledging to be conciliatory to communism but by being even more concerned about reds under the bed than the Democrats - and he was the one who pulled them out of Vietnam.
The same isn't possible for the Democrats - they've been seen as soft on security and soft on pretty much anything since the 60s, in fact probably earlier. Going around saying "This strategy of being hard on security isn't working" is only going to work if they can say something convincing about how their alternative doesn't look like surrender. When Democrats pull out of somewhere it looks a lot more like surrender than when a Republican does it - that's just the nature of US politics at the moment.
The idea that this is some sweep of leftist opinion rising internally against US warmongering is simply not credible. Remember that flurry of excitement when Lieberman lost the Connecticut primary to an anti-war Democrat? Well, who's the senator for Connecticut this morning?
The independent Joe Lieberman.
So let's not get carried away. Nancy Pelosi is the biggest winner this week - but she is seen as the very epitome of coastal state, liberal, soft Democrats. If the Democrats are to win the big one in 2008 that's not going to win it for them. The US electorate is the most conservative in the western industrialised world and it's simply not the case that an unpopular war can overturn that.
The GOP candidate in 2008 is not going to be George Bush, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld.
posted by Pickles @ 11:11 am
3 Comments:
At 12:26 pm,
Anonymous said…
Nancy Pelosi is the biggest winner this week - but she is seen as the very epitome of coastal state, liberal, soft Democrats. If the Democrats are to win the big one in 2008 that's not going to win it for them.
Hang on. Pelosi is seen exactly as you describe. And the GOP has been pushing that point into every home in America. And still, the Dems won the House. America has just voted for Nancy Pelosi, the epitome of coastal state, liberal, soft values, to be second-in-line to the White House. They don't appear to have voted the Senate into Dem hands (or, if they have, then only by the narrowest of margins), even though it's led by Harry Reid, the total opposite of Pelosi, one of the newest New Democrats with a few qualms about abortion and gay marriage to boot, someone who's to the right of a few Republicans (such as Lincoln Chafee, a bit of a surprise loser last night).
So, the Dems just won with the most left-wing national figure they've had for a very, very long time. You don't think that's a pointer for 2008? The Dems won because of the strategy purused by Pelosi and Howard Dean, one that is the complete opposite of the strategy pursued by both the GOP and the right wing of the Democratic Party (and, incidentally, New Labour in the UK). Rather than trying to target a handful of swing voters in a few key states, they ran a 50-state strategy. They went out and said, America is one nation and we want to represent the whole of that nation. They didn't ignore their base (the biggest mistake Democrats have made over the last ten years), nor did they dismiss sections of America for being too loyally Republican. That is how the Democrats will win in 2008, by running to unite America, not to divide it as Dubya and Clinton did.
At 12:42 pm,
Pickles said…
But these actually aren't very good results.
Not good enough to indicate they'd win the White House in 2008.
And mid terms are supposed to be good results.
William Hague did really really really well in the 1999 European elections by being really really right wing.
It didn't help him in 2001.
Uniting a country that's overwhelmingly patriotic and quite militaristic around an anti-war stance is ok in the mid terms when the war is unpopular.
But when you're actually talking about electing a commander in chief for any *future* security threats the American people won't buy it.
At 11:40 pm,
Buck Kendall said…
Firstly, Pickles, can I just say I think your post is absolutely spot on and it's nice to see someone else approach this with a little reasonable analysis. We come from different political standpoints, but I couldn't agree with you more on this.
In terms of the post by 'anonymous'; this:
"So, the Dems just won with the most left-wing national figure they've had for a very, very long time. You don't think that's a pointer for 2008?"
makes no sense. That is like saying that everyone who voted for Bush in 2004 was a Bush Republican, and had Kerry won it would have been indicative of the support that one of the most liberal Senators evidently carried. In 2004 we had a very right wing candidate against a very left wing candidate and not too many votes between them. The Democrats won not 'because' of Nancy Pelosi but because of disregard for the Bush administration and respect for Democrats at the local level and as an alternative. It's not England; how many people went to the polling booth and felt they were voting for Nancy. If you can find me some I'll buy you a drink.
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