I wonder if there are any polling data about the question, “Who would you LEAST like to see as the Democratic presidential candidate in 2008?” Among Dems, Hillary would be real high ip on that list too.
The Dems will need an issue to excite the base. While the conventional wisdom is that Democrats need former Republican voters in order to win, they could just as easily get their winning margin from the 50% of registered voters who stay home.
Republicans understand this. That’s why terrorism and gay marriage have been the cornerstones of their campaigns in the last few years. They know that people who don’t give a shit about estate taxes or the details of Social Security will get off their butts for those issues. It doesn’t matter that the Dems are equally interested in stopping terrorism (even if methods differ) and haven’t been especially active in legalizing gay marriage; as long as they can create the impression that a vote for them is a vote against terrorism and gay rights, they can win.
So the Dems need to find issues that will get the uninterested off their couches. That has been hard in the last few elections, but this time around they have:
1.) Gas prices. This is a big one, and a lot of Democratic congressional challengers are hitting it hard.
2.) Health care. The only problem here is that any viable improvements to our health care system are necessarily complicated and hard to sell.
So the Dems could screw it up by not finding a couple of popular, easy-to-sell issues to focus on. It doesn’t matter what the GOP positions on those issues are, or how much of a part of the problem they are. It’s all in the presentation.
I think running against Bush is a more viable strategy than people think. Since the last federal elections, and especially since Cindy Sheehan and Katrina–Bush has become a lot less popular. (That isn’t to say it had anything to do with Sheehan; she just marked a turning point in public perception of Iraq.) No viable Republican candidate is going to be able to distance himself completely from Bush without looking like the dreaded “flip-flopper”. What high-profile Republican out there hasn’t had a few pictures taken with the man? Who hasn’t made a speech praising him? Who hasn’t campaigned for him?
No, this is exactly what Dems SHOULD do. Bush is tremendously unpopular among the electorate – looks like they are finally starting to figure things out. Now, what have the Pubbies in Congress been doing for the last six years? What’s that word for the way they’ve been voting? Lockstep? Do I hear … lockstep?
Every Pubbie incumbent should have a long and ugly voting record (with the exceptions of McCain and Chaffee) of voting for everything Bush has backed. It’s going to be CHILD’S PLAY to hang the Bush loser aura on almost every Pubbie candidate and the Dems should be doing that to every last Pubbie in Congress. They’ll DEFINITELY be screwing up if they don’t do that.
No Pubbie candidate is going to have the ability to credibly disassociate himself from Bush with all that Pubbie lockstepping that’s been going on.
Money and press. In Mich this year Devos has been running tv ads for months. He was running way before anyone else ever thought of it. He runs ads day and night. My neighbors are beginning to parrot his ads to me. He is an Amway billionaire set up a plant in China. Has been fined for lying about the amount distributors make and he is leading. Money can overcome a lot.
They have to run someone clean. Any chinks will be found and exploited. He will be swiftboated. It won’t be easy.I want Gary Hart.
This sounds like a strategy for the 2006 elections – is that what you meant? Or did you mean this for the 2008 elections? Certainly it won’t apply in 2008 if the pubs don’t nominate a senator.
I don’t think most Americans pay that much attention to politics. I would be surprised if most Americans even remember McCain ran for the nomination in 2000.
Not going to work. Bush isn’t going to run in 2008 and the Democrats will blow it if they base their campaign on defeating the wrong person. You mentioned McCain (who I consider the most likely candidate) as somebody who could plausibly distance himself from Bush. So could Governors like Huckabee or Pataki or people out of office like Gingrich or Guiliani. But even Senators like Allen or Frist can do the necessary gyrations if it’s needed. The only people I see who are unbreakably linked to Bush are Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and his brother.
You’re right, it’s basically 2006 thinking, but if the Pubbies nominate anyone who’s been following in Bush’ track (rather than, say, McCain or Giuliani, whom I consider long shots at this juncture) then the same tactic can be used on them.
And almost any Republican Senator or Representative who held office 2000-2006. That lockstep voting is gonna HURT them, if the Dems play it right. Of course, history suggests the Dems will not.
That’s easy enough. They won’t take positions, won’t fight hard, will misspend money on useless ads. They just won’t be tough enough. I predict the Dems losing seats in '06 and getting kicked hard in '08.
Not so much by election fraud. The majority of states now require printed backups of electronic voting machines, as do many counties in states without statewide laws. Opportunities for Diebold to cheat are rapidly shrinking.
Dems just aren’t nasty enough. Take the North Carolina 13th. The Pubs’ main tactic is to accuse Democrat Brad Miller of being gay. (Miller has been happily married for 21 years, to a woman.) The Pub tagline? “If Miller had his way,” says the announcer, “America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.” Pub Robinson has also sent mailings to black voters claiming that Miller lives in an entirely white district. (Another lie, needless to say.)
(Cite )
That’s what passes for ethics among Republicans these days. The Democrats simply won’t use those tactics because they still have the archaic belief that lies and smears are morally wrong. Therefore the Republicans will continue to win.
“Nice guys finish last.”
That’s nothing. Remember Rove’s attacks on John McCain when he was running in 2000? For those who don’t know, McCain has an adopted daughter who is from Bangladesh. When McCain was running for the South Carolina primary, Rove did a two step attack. First he sent out thousands of pictures of McCain with his darker skinned daughter. Then after people had seen the picture, he had a poll conducted of all the registered voters in South Carolina asking them, as a purely hypothetical question, if it would affect their voting decision if they heard that one of the candidates had an illegitimate daughter from an adulterous affair he’d had with a black woman?
And this was how the Bush campaign treated its fellow Republicans, much less the Democrats. I remember this story whenever I hear people defend Karl Rove; the man is scum - he always has been and always will be. George Bush shouldn’t just be ashamed for employing this man; he should be ashamed for having ever been in the same room with him.