Really, who would want to take over from Bush? Did we dodge a bullet, only to be Phoenix-like in the next Presidential election?
From Savage Love (yes, a sex column, but this one is safe for work as he’s talking about gay issues influencing the election rather than sex :))
So really, could losing this election be good for the Democrats in the long run?
It depends on how many Ashcroft-minded Justices they get to appoint to the Supreme Court over the next four years.
rwj
Depends on if you think the Democratic party is more important than the United States.
What is the purpose of a political party? To stand aside and watch the country go down the tubes, while you relish the fact that it wasn’t your fault? Why not just dispand the Democratic party and become apolitical if that’s how you feel?
The purpose of a political party is to elect officials who enact legislation to accomplish some goal. If you aren’t interesting in electing officials or enacting legislation, what good is a political party?
I don’t think anyone is arguing that the Dems shouldn’t have done their best to win the 2004 election, just that, having not won it, they may reap an unexpected reward in not being tagged with responsibility for cleaning up the messes Bush has created.
The real flaw in the logic here is the assumption that Bush won’t leave an even BIGGER mess for whoever wins in 2008.
Pre-election, I had mixed feelings about my boys (John and John) winning, because they would inherit the mess in Iraq, have to deal with the deficit, etc. It’s like I wouldn’t want to wish this mess on anyone, regardless how bad they said they wanted it.
So, I do tend to agree with Dan Savage’s analysis, that yes, things will get worse during W’s second term, mainly because the man doesn’t know the first rule about hole digging. W simply WILL NOT change his strategy In Iraq, which seems to be “We need to destroy this country in order to save it.”
Although I don’t want to see the needless killings in Iraq continue (Iraqi civilians and U.S. forces alike), I do believe that this war will tuurn into an even bigger mess than it is now – so big of a mess that even W’s spin will not hide the facts from the U.S. public.
And yes, I think because of this there will be a backlash against the Republicans in general in 2008 (and maybe by the mid-term elections in 2006), and I think whoever the GOP runs for president in 2008 will be running on the track record of the Bush terms.
<Mr. T>I pity the fool.</Mr. T>
Only if they . . . OK, we . . . retool our message and prepare for 2006. This has to be considered our 1964, when the Republicans took a licking from the Goldwater campaign but regrouped and swamped the 1968 campaign. (Of course, it didn’t hurt that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 alienated Southern whites from the Democrats and began a movement to the GOP that continues to this day. LBJ was partly right when he said of the Act, “Well, we’ve just lost the South for a generation”; he underestimated the timeframe.)
The election was so close–four senate elections, all in red states (AK, OK, TN, FL) were each separated by only a few percentage points, but all won by the GOP candidate; I just don’t know what else to do to seal the deal.
For now, concentrate on the state level, and our surprising gains in the West (CO, MT, NV) and figure out what the state Democratic parties are doing right.
I don’t doubt the GOP spin machine’s ability to escape responsibility; it’s as if people want to buy into their arrogance, seeking certainty in our unstable current condition. But by the time of the next elections, the spectre of 9/11 will have faded even more into the background, so there is hope there.
So yes, it could be considered a good thing for the Democrats that they lost, but it really is small comfort knowing what could happen to the country in the meantime.
I agree, and I think the OP has some merit. While I generall eschew the Vietnam analogy for Iraq, Bush may find himself in situation not dissimilar from Johnson in his second term (ie, his first elected term). I don’t see a good solution to the mess of Iraq, and if we’re still slogging our way thru that 4 years hence, the Democrats will rightly be put back in the driver’s seat by the electorate.
I don’t think for a minute that any political party is more important than the greater health of the United States. Further, I don’t think that a Republican win in 2004 will actually lead to the destruction of the Union; I think the Union is stronger than that.
I don’t want the country to go down the tubes, even if I don’t live there anymore. Since the Republicans overwhelmingly and legitimately won, however, I think both the US and the world are going to have to grin and bear it for 4 years.
Yes, a political party is supposed to govern, pass laws, etc, and I am interested in electing officials who do that with my personal interests high in their minds; this time, the majority choice was someone I do not support. Does this mean I go running into the street and advocate revolution? Or attempt to work within the system to change it as best I can to what I think is right?
I agree with AirblairXXX -the way to win is for the Dems to build on their strengths, find out what they did well, and improve on that, whilst minimizing their weaknesses. It’s the way Tiger Woods plays golf - he ain’t as good at the short game, so he plays the long game as much as possible and practices the hell out of that, and practices just enough on the short game to minimize the overall impact of it.
But I am curious what others think as well…
It remains to be seen.
Consider, for example, that these past four years have been harsh, yet the administration has come out unscathed (at least in the sense that it was validated for another term).
The administration could completely screw up the next four years, but whether they “catch the bullet” or dodge it relies on public perception - and perception is not necessarily accurate, and can be manipulated.
I suppose it’s overly cynical, but my response is: it depends on how well this administration spins their mistakes.
I guess the big objection I have is the idea that the Democrats should be glad they don’t have to clean up all the messes Bush has made in his first 4 years. But of course, if you think Bush has made messes in his first 4 years, think about how big the mess will be in 8 years. OK, so then you’ll be glad the Democrats don’t have to clean up THAT mess, and be happy when a new Republican screw-up is elected in 2008. And when 2012 rolls around, and the country is screwed even further, boy, when the Democrats lose that election you’ll REALLY be happy.
Backwards thinking. Bush isn’t going to clean up his own messes, someone else is going to have to do that. If the Democrats won’t do it, then no one will do it.
Is anyone else characterizing the OP this way, besides yourself? We’re not “glad” we lost. And that’s not because we see the election like a football game, where all that matters is the final score.
We wanted to win because we wanted to change the course of the country, and we failed.
Eventually we’ll get our chance again, but for now all we can do is cover our eyes, avoid the evening news, ignore the mounting war dead (on both sides), hope our air isn’t too polluted thanks to all the energy and chemical companies who were allowed to write the regulations covering their industries, hope we hold onto our jobs, hope our taxes don’t have to rise too much to cover GWB’s deficit, hope we will have Social Security when we retire . . .
I see where you’re coming from, but I think part of the sentiment in the OP is that there might not be ANY good solutions to the situation in Iraq. We may simply be unable to control events over there, and the end result will make anyone sitting at the helm in the US look bad, no matter what we do.
I don’t for a minute buy this argument about any issue other than Iraq. The idea that “the economy is a mess” is laughable on the face of it. But when it comes to Iraq, I just don’t see a good ending.
True enough, but one hopes that it will be much, much harder to point the finger at anyone but themselves when they have 8 years of total power.
Me, too… I wanted to win. Badly. Living in Europe has highlighted for me so many more failures for this administration. I thought it should be changed, and threw as much of my support as I could behind that goal, considering how far away I was.
We lost. We didn’t change anything.
Now I am just looking on the bright side. If Bush did this badly in 4 years, imagine how badly he’ll do in 4 more, and how much stronger the mandate will be to throw his ass out!
Face it, until things are broken, no one will fix anything. Things aren’t broken enough. Yet.
Mr. Mace has it right. I think the OP has a lot of merit. The economy rises and falls pretty independently from the president. But I don’t see Iraq ever getting better. And it could get much worse. A lot of voters gave Bush a pass to finish what he started, but after a 5+ year war in 2008, his succeeding Republican nominee will not have that benefit. Let Bush swelter in the furnace that he has lit, then in 2006 and 2008, the Dems will reap the seeds of discontent that are sown today.
All of this rides on the assumption that things will BE worse in '08 of course…or, more importantly that people will PERCEIVE that things are worse in '08. Not a sure thing by any means. Take the economy for instance. Certainly it might be in the tank in 4 years.
However, there is also the very real possibility that it will be rolling along nicely in 4 years. If so, I think the Dems didnt ‘dodge a bullet’ there…they failed to cash in on a recovering economy to score political points as Bush will if it DOES recover. Iraq is the same thing. Certainly it could be just as bad in 4 years as today. But then again, it might be better (or PERCEIVED to be better)…so again, the Dems won’t have dodged a bullet but failed to cash in on a trend (though I don’t actually SEE a trend in Iraq atm, unlike the economy…just giving a for instance).
The problem as I see it is you pretty much have to root for Bush to royally fuck up…which is certainly within the realm of possibility given his track record. But many things happen that Presidents take credit for but don’t really effect that much…like the economy for instance.
So…time will tell. If Bush managed to do well (or is PERCEIVED to be doing well) then I think the Dems are in for a rough time in '08 (though they might do better in '06…I seriously doubt much will change by then, and certainly not by the time campaigning starts). If Bush tanks on any number of issues the Dems might do well in '08. We’ll see…
-XT
As a Republican, I comforted myself with the thought that if Kerry were to somehow win, he would not be able to get most of the agenda I disagree with through a Republican congress. Now that GWB has won and both houses of congress are in Republican hands, the fate of both parties is at a crossroads.
If the Republicans do poorly, they will have nobody to blame but themselves. Democrats can then “I told you so” them to death, possibly all the way to the Oval Office.
However, if things go well, the Republicans will be able to say “Look what we can do without those damned Democrats getting in the way”. This may usher in quite a few years for the Democrats as a minority power in congress and locked out of the White House. So in many ways, it is in the best interest of the Democratic party for things to go badly for the next four years.
Yes, I think we democrats were in for a lose-lose situation, unless we were to be able to regain at least the senate. Otherwise there is no way this term could have gone well for John Kerry in terms of political power. And in my opinion, the Democrats having long-term politcal power is good for this country. Of course Republicans will disagree because that is the nature of politics.
But who will run as Bush’s sucessor? Cheny can’t win, I don’t think. He says he isn’t interested in running for president, but that doesnt’ really matter what he says, right? But Bush had a lot of strengths that a sucessor from outside of the administration can’t have. Firstly, since 911 he is the one that has security as his strong suit. He is the only one that has shown the ability of preventing terror attacks (as flimsy as evidence that he actually did anything may be). Of course we won’t t know the Republican nominee for some time, but I imagine that Karl Rove will want to have it be someone in the administration, to build on this reputation. But that means he’ll have to name someone to some cabinent post, I guess to be able to do this.
Otherwise the new republican will be running from a faction that isn’t the ruling one. They will most certainly be against the war if it didn’t work.
But I think that Iraq is just going to turn into a big version of Gazaa in a slow process. If Bush manages to somehow win this, then there will be no problems, but if it continues on the way down, it will be better for the democrats. And by better, I mean that we’ll be able to pull out. By then there will probably be little other choice as we will have obliterated all of our possible good-will that would let the people over there accept our presence as a good thing.
What would have happened to Kerry? Well… not many good things. He’d be facing a deeeeeply divided country with an ornery republican majorty that is mad about losing the presidency by such a small margin AND winning the popular vote. It would be political warfare for the next 2 years and possibly a republican attempt at impeachment if once they gained more in 2006. He’d be a lame duck from start to finish.
Although we democrats were ready to make changes, the nation wasn’t. This whole bush presidency hasn’t played itself out to its logical end to some people, so they want to see what he can do now.
The good thing now is that this is all his now. No Clinton recession, no 9/11, no nothing. That’s all going to sound like hollow excuses now. Its a big responsiblity to have what he has now. Plus the idea that all of these investigations are going to tarnish a lot of important people to him. Valery Plame may come up. They’ve pissed off a lot of people there in DC, and they probably wanted to defeat him in the polls. I wonder if anything will come of that.
I agree 100% with the Iraq assessment. I’m not so sure about the economy. The skyrocketing debts and deficit are unlikely to even level, much less shrink, while BushCo remains in power, and we can’t count on a 90’s-style tech boom, with associated increases in income and capital-gains tax revenue to bail the Feds out. Bush’s “Ownership Society” and plans to “privatize” Soc .Sec. strike me as little more than plans to suck out whatever slushy portions can be raided from the federal coffers for TWAT and corporate welfare, and then cut the average citizen loose to fend with whatever scraps remain. Mismanage taxpayer money? Why, grab whatever you can that is left, throw some crumbs the electorate’s way, tell them they are now “empowered”, and pretend whatever comes of it in the future is their fault.
:rolleyes: Its this kind of foam that makes me think that the Republicans will be around for a good long time.
-XT