My scenario for a Republican victory is a variation of several ideas already floated.
The Dems nominate a liberal, e.g., Clinton or Obama.
The Pubs nominate a moderate.
Somewhere around Sept '08, Condi concludes negotiations on an agreement with the Iraqi government which includes a specific, firm time table for the withdrawal of all American troops. IMHO, how long doesn’t matter, but for the sake of discussion, let’s assume two years.
Bush goes on national TV and apologizes to the American public that it took so long, but, by golly, we’ve finally achieved victory in Iraq. Thank you for your patience.
Republicans jump on the bandwagon and announce that, happily, we can now focus on other issues like taxes.
Hey, it worked in '72.
Given the internal dynamics of the GOP, this is presumably preceded by the same “Then, A Miracle Happens” step that links two equations in a Sidney Harris cartoon I recall.
Why? Rudy is one of two frontrunners right now and he’s a moderate. Bush is president, and he ran and governs as a moderate. He’s got Cheney as a solid conservative in the VP spot, but that’s it.
I’m hoping that a conservative wins the pub nomination, but it’s unlikely. The most conservative we may see getting elected is McCain.
Bush governs as a moderate? :rolleyes: Are we looking at the same man? I guess I find the Supreme Court appointments the most damning. His longest legacy may well be those he appointed to the courts. Overwhelmingly they have been more conservative than those they replaced, even when a Moderate like Sanda Day O’Conner retired. He is very much Pro-Life. He has been anti-environment.
I realize he has completely failed as a fiscal conservative. However, it is not a moderate’s way to spend without funding. That is just a crazy Bush way.
I do not accept him as a moderate. Rudy is a moderate. Wittmann despite her faults is a moderate. Colin Powell is a moderate. Bush is a fiscally irresponsible conservative. Compared to Nixon & Ford he is far to the right.
If you think that the pawn of the Religous Right is a “moderate” then you have such a strange definition of the term that it’s no use even talking to you. Yes, GWB did run as a moderate first term, but he has not acted as one.
I knew that people would disagree with me, and I don’t want to hijack this thread too badly, but yes Bush is a moderate.
Harriet Miers wasn’t exactly a conservative’s dream candidate. He only replaced her with a conservative after the base basically forced him to. His first pick was hardly a conservative.
Name any legislation that he’s tried to pass banning abortions. You guys can keep saying this, but it just isn’t true.
No. He’s not. Bush is responsible for the country’s largest wildlife refuge in Hawaii, to give one example.
Even if Bush was anti-environment, whatever that means, so what? That’s not a conservative issue. Hunters in America do more for the environment than anybody else and they tend to be conservative.
Here’s a prediction: If Rudy wins the election and is the next president, then he will eventually be hated and branded a hyperconservative by some on the left no matter how he actually governs.
How about his other appointments? Please include lesser courts.
Not legislation, but he has given numerous Pro-life speeches, including in the last month. He has reaffirmed his anti-Stem cell research position. He is still pro-life and not pro-choice. Again look at the judges he has appointed.
I am well aware of it. I started a thread on it in fact. I am talking about Presidential decisions he made that have lessened the clean air and water acts. His (okay Cheney’s) push for drilling in the Alaska wildlife area. etc. How about his dismal record as governor of Texas.
I appreciate what hunters do for the environment. However, do you really believe they do more for the environment than anyone else does? What a nice insult to the environmental movement.
You could well be right. However, I am not a liberal or on the left. Bush is not a moderate unless the bar has moved again.
Hey, you specifically stated SCOTUS appointments, so that’s what I responded to. If you want to make a case that all the appointments have been conservatives, then go ahead. I might even agree with you. But, I’m not going to do the legwork for you.
Yes, he does give conservative issues some lip service but that’s it. It’s not even very good lip service. I can’t recall him ever mentioning abortion in a state of the union or prime time speech.
He gives his conservative base the bare minimum amount of attention that he thinks they need to not be completely revolting against him. That doesn’t make him a conservative. Any successful Republican politician needs to do this.
Again, this is not a conservative issue. Drilling in ANWR isn’t a conservative/liberal issue.
Well, it depends on how you want to measure it. If you’re measuring it by dollars, then yes, the hunters and fishermen raise much more than anybody else. A factcard I got a couple years ago along with my hunting license states that the 10% of the population who are sportsmen raise twelve times as much money for wildlife conservation than the other 90% of the population.
Pointing this out isn’t an insult to the environmental movement. We still let them use the national parks that our fees and taxes pay for.
The left hates Bush. A lot. For some reason this gets confused with him being far to the right. He’s just not.
Wait, I thought you said “The Dems nominate a liberal”… :dubious:
Or is this simply an admission of how far right the Republicans have dragged the country, where a Goldwater Republican like Hillary Clinton is now considered a “liberal”?
Debaser, I hate playing the parsing game.
In my first response to you, I wrote:
“those he appointed to the courts” was meant to include those lower level judges he appointed. Sorry for the confusion, my writing is far from great.
On the Pro-Life part, he gives lip service and judges. The Judges are the most important part of the Pro-Life fight and strategy.
The environment is more than just nature conservation. That is a very important part. But stating without cites that Hunters raise 12 times the money, still ignores Global Warming issues, Clean Water Issues, Clean Air Issues, Anti-Nuke issues (which I mostly do not agree with), etc. Your figures are both suspected and I believe flawed. The Green Movement is generally a liberal movement with the exceptions of support from Hunters and Game Fishers and oddball Green Republicans like me. I sincerely wish it was less of a liberal issue and more of a across the board issue.
If Bush is a moderate, what were his Father and Nixon?
I’m not going to say that the Republicans don’t have a prayer in 2008. They do. But this thread reflects a couple huge problems that the Republicans are going to have to deal with during the 2008 presidential race. It seems that any time I’m in a conversation about the Republicans’ 2008 prospects—or in an internet discussion about them, or watching TV pundits, or reading news articles—the conversation can’t seem to stay out of talking about the Democratic candidates for 2008. Witness this thread, which has spent more time discussing Clinton and Obama than it has any Republican contender. Giuliani’s been talked about some, late in the thread, and Rice has gotten some talk, even though she’s almost certainly not running. There’s been very little mention of John McCain, Sam Brownback and Chuck Hagel, no one could remember Jim Gilmore’s name, and no one even brought up most of the likely Republican candidates: Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, Charles Keating, George Pataki, and Willard “Mitt” Romney! This is not a criticism of anyone, of course, but rather an observation, because I think it shows that no one is particularly excited about what the Republicans are up to, nor are they excited about the candidates that the Republicans might put forward. Who the Democrats might nominate seems to be more interesting to everyone.
Another problem for the Republicans that this discussion (and many others) reflects is the inability to steer the conversation away from George W. Bush. While it’s true that Bush won’t be running in 2008 (and neither will his brother,) we all seem to see the eventual Republican nominee as hopelessly chained to Bush and his record. That’s not going to help the Republicans next year, either.
This next presidential election is the Democrats’ to lose. Right now it looks like too many people are soured on Republicans even to speculate on what it would be like to have another Republican president, much less whom that president might be. The lack of energy on the Republicans’ side doesn’t seem to be on the verge of reversing, either. A lot can change in a few months in politics, I know, but there doesn’t seem to be any hint that anything will or that it even might. If I were a betting man, I’d bet a wad on Democrat X for 2008—not my house, but a significant amount of cash. And unless some actual buzz starts up about Republican X soon, they’re going to slip even further behind for 2008.
More interesting, sure, but not necessarily more popular.
Go to Cafe Society and you’ll see people talking about the TV shows “Project Runway” or “Veronica Mars.” You’ll rarely see people talking about “CSI.” But “CSI” gets huge ratings, and PR and VM simply don’t.
Obama might be the “Project Runway” of the 2008 presidential election–the one everyone’s talking about but not enough people support.
That is very dangerous thinking. And very wrong thinking, IMO.
I fear that my party has hypnotized itself into believing that the 2006 election represented a sea change in voter thinking, when in fact it may only be a one-time protest vote against the war in Iraq.
It is entirely possible that the Iraq issue may be neutralized by 2008. Chuck Hagel is certainly working very hard toward that end. He is smart enough to know that if Republicans can put Iraq behind them they stand a good chance of retaining the White House in '08.
I think that the electoral map in 2008 will look very similar to the electoral map in 2004, and Democrats are going to have to work very hard to keep the blue states blue and to move one or two red states into the blue column.
I don’t know that I entirely agree with you on this, but I think you hit the nail on the head here: Democrats cannot take anything for granted. Assuming that you have a great advantage guarantees that you will be much easier to beat.
Maybe Democrats will have an easy time winning the White House in 22 months, but believing that means no effort need be spent now to ensure that will kill any chances of success.
I know words change their meaning over time, but is “moderate” now a synonym for “psychotic”? If so, it would not quite apply to Giuliani.