The Friday debate: Still just a bunch of losers
Noone’s going to like me for saying this, but I’m going to say it anyway:
The Democrats will lose the midterms. And that’s probably all they deserve.
Don’t get me wrong – that’s not what I want to happen. What I want is for the Republicans to be thrown out on to the street, and for the Democrats to spend the next two years doing such a good impression of great government that, come 2008, the GOP are still consumed by recriminations and self-loathing and a Clinton-Obama dream ticket sweeps to victory. That’s what I want to happen.
Reality, though, is rarely so accommodating – and anyone who pays even the slightest bit of attention to US politics will be familiar with the list of advantages the Republicans have behind them. The power of incumbency; an electoral map so gerrymandered that only a tenth of House seats are even competitive; fewer vulnerable Senate seats up for reelection than their opponents; and an electoral base composed of evangelists who fear Satan and all his demons only slightly less than they fear the idea of a Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. All this the Republicans have on their side.
And the Democrats have… erm, the fact that noone likes Bush very much. Oh, and that thing about Mark Foley liking boys.
They have no coherent strategy on Iraq, but that’s not a problem, because they have no coherent strategy on anything else either. Free trade, education, healthcare… It’s not that they don’t have any policies. They’ve got dozens of the sodding things. And the only one they all seem to agree on is, “We’re not the other guys.”
And John Kerry? The man so many of us had so much hope riding on in 2004, when we were heartbroken to see him cruelly rejected by the American people? What a tit.
The Republicans have spent the last six years strip mining everything that is great about America, and selling it on to the likes of Halliburton. They don’t just deserve to lose, they deserve to be humiliated.
But the Democrats… They don’t deserve to win. And they probably won’t.
Even if they make gains (which they will, just not as many as some breathless commentators say) it’s a pyrrhic victory, as they’ve have to run while extolling the “moral majority” stance on a lot of stuff: they have to push the immoral nature of Mark Foley’s actions, thereby in my mind sacrificing one of the few things that differentiates the blue dog democrats from republicans.
Had I been a yank, I suspect that I’d have voted for Gore not Bush. But I really couldn’t imagine voting for Kerry. What a find he was!
I think one upshot if this may be that Kerry finally gets a boot from any leadership election.
I have a bad feeling you may turn out right. And the reason for that is squarely the Democrats’ inability to have a coherent message on anything that will pin down the Republicans.
But Hilary Clinton? No way. I think she is part of the problem – after all this time still unable to lead with a strong message. Barack Obama is their hope. Maybe along with John Edwards they could do so much better.
Dearieme: I think Kerry personifies the problem I was talking about. There was a whole load of enthusiasm for a Democratic win in 2004 from 48% of Americans… but people weren’t voting for Kerry, they were voting against Bush.
I just wanted to add that I have never been so elated to be proved so completely and utterly wrong. I thank you.
Never work with children, animals, or political predictions, obviously.