Posted on 12/30/2003 9:57:48 PM PST by Pokey78
Entering 2004, it appears that America is poised to have a defining election that will create a permanent Republican majority.
Democrats appear likely to nominate Howard Dean, rather than someone like Dick Gephardt or Joe Lieberman or Wesley Clark who could present a stronger challenge to President Bush in the general election. In doing so, Democrats are also setting the direction that they want their party to follow -- the extreme left.
Dean has stated again and again that his first objective is to take over the Democratic Party and return it to its roots. In doing so, he will part ways from Democrats such as Bill Clinton and Lieberman, who felt that Democrats need to veer to the center in elections and then govern from the left.
Like another presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, Dean's first objective is his party's machinery. But unlike Goldwater, Dean is wrong on what the American people want.
From the 1952 election of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Americans have been turning more conservative. Goldwater's ideas were right on target with millions of Americans, but he was shot down by his own misstatements and by liberals in his own party who thought imitating Democrats was the way to victory. The subsequent elections of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush demonstrate the resonance of Goldwater's ideas.
Dean's ideas, on the other hand, are not popular with a majority of the American voters or even a majority of Democrats. But under the arcane nominating rules, Dean will most likely be the Democratic nominee. Sensing this, Al Gore recently rushed to endorse Dean. In doing so, Gore hoped to imitate Nixon. Nixon knew Goldwater would lose in 1964. But Nixon realized that Goldwater's overall philosophy was a winner, so he supported Goldwater wholeheartedly, hoping to inherit his support in 1968 and with that the presidency. Gore believes that the same will happen to him.
But Gore is miscalculating. The country is more conservative and grows more so daily. Gore and Dean are out of touch with a majority of Americans with their support for same-sex marriages. In foreign policy, they resemble Neville Chamberlain more so than Harry Truman. And by backing them, the Democrats are consigning themselves to minority status for the long term.
The 2004 presidential race will be a defining election in American politics, akin to that of Franklin Roosevelt's in 1936 that truly established the Democrats as a majority party.
Key groups that can make up a new Republican majority are forming. Jewish-Americans, long a stalwart of the Democrats, are ready to vote Republican over what they see as not only Dean's but the Democratic Party's abandonment of Israel. Hispanics have also shown, most recently in the California recall, that they will vote Republican.
Finally, Democrats are writing off an entire section of the country -- the South. The Dean nomination will be the final action needed to set off the Republican majority at all levels.
Dean is not a godsend to Republicans; he is the defining moment that Republicans have needed to become the majority party.
--David E. Johnson is the CEO of Strategic Vision LLC, an Atlanta-based public relations and public affairs company.
Heh. Good thing that I make the work schedules for me and my backup. I usually work Wednesdays, but I'm going to make and exception the day after Election Day.
Sorry to take your comments out of context, but I thought it sounded good.
Ludicrous. The parties were in about parity before the 2004 election, and they will be after. I don't see any defining issue that will move a block of voters permanently. True, most of the 10%-15% or so of swing voters will swing to Bush, with his incumbancy and emerging issue advantage, but that is good for just one election.
There will only be a systemic change in the equation when the litmus test issues change, and the relative weight the voters give to them. They aren't changing for this election.
I expect you will be right.
In the last election the press built up McCain and would have you believe the most important issue was campaign finance reform. I felt they did this to siphon off some of Bush's general election money as he had to spend money to beat off a growing challenge from Mc Cain. Then the press laid in wait for Bush to go to Bob Jones Univ. When Bush went there the press exploded in rage and gave everyone who wanted to bash Bush a press platform to call him anti- Catholic and a racial bigot.
So like you, I expect the liberal press to be back in action this coming election.
They got a problem though; there are other information outlets that will call them on it. 2003 wasn't a good year for the New York Times, the BBC, CNN and some other left biased news sources. I hope it continues in 2004. Happy New Year!!- tom
What is happening is that the Republicans are moving to the left slower than the Democrats. While that tends to move the Independents into the Pubbies column come voting time and leads to Republican majorities it doesn't change the overall dynamics: we are slowly become a socialist country. We vote Republican in the hopes that it will slow the progress toward collectivization. I have seen nothing from Bush or the Republican leadership that would lead me to believe that we will ever return this country to one that Barry Goldwater would even recognize let alone one that he envisioned.
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