Ha! Steyn can turn a phrase!
Posted on 04/13/2005 1:10:44 PM PDT by Constitution Day
The Icewoman Cometh By Mark Steyn During the impeachment trial of blessed memory, I had a brief conversation with Sen. Barbara Boxer. “My duty is to the Constitution,” she said gravely. “My duty is to preserve our two-party democratic system. It’s up to the Democrats to save the Republican party from itself.” Warming to her theme, the petite brunette liberal extremist noted the latest Republican poll numbers — down somewhere between Robert Mugabe and the Ebola virus — and explained, “That’s not good for our democracy. This is a tragedy for the Republicans. The GOP has become the Get Our President party. That’s not the Republican party the people want. We have to reach out to them.” “Oh, come off it,” I said. Well, okay, I didn’t. Instead I nodded thoughtfully in a nonpartisan sort of way and marveled at the senator’s ability to reel off her bit with a straight face. Eventually, sensing a massive uncontainable guffaw rising in her gullet, Ms. Boxer wrapped it up and stepped into the Senate elevator. As the doors slid closed, muffled howls of laughter began to shake the Capitol, glass rattled in the windows, plaster fell from the ceiling . . . Politics affords few greater pleasures than offering one’s opponents some friendly but hopefully lethal piece of advice. We’re in one of those phases now — hence, the vogue for columns on the “Conservative Crackup,” a fearsome beast that, like the Loch Ness Monster, more and more folks claim to have spotted looming in the distance. In reality, the unrelieved gloom is on the Dem side of the ledger: The Republicans are all but certain to increase their majority in 2006. Whereas, if you want the state of the Democratic party in a single image, cut out the photograph from the New York Times the other day: a pumped Robert C. Byrd giving a clenched-fist salute at a MoveOn.org rally. That’s the Rainbow Coalition 2005 model: a dwindling band of ancient vindictive legislators yoked to a cash-flush unrepresentative fringe. It would actually be to the Democrats’ advantage if the Byrd-Kos union were to crack up, but instead their union seems merely cracked, like a miscast double-act thrown together by a desperate burlesque agent. There is, however, one exception to the Dems’ dance of death: President-presumptive Rodham Clinton. The chances of a Rodham restoration in the White House are better than even. For one thing, the salient feature of the Clintons’ Democratic party is that it was grand for the Clintons, disastrous for the party: The Dems lost everything — House, Senate, state legislatures, governorships — but somehow Bill and Hill were always the lone exceptions that proved the rule. Clinton couldn’t even bequeath the White House to his vice president in a time of “peace and prosperity,” yet the First Lady won an unprecedented victory in a state she’d never lived in. There is no reason to believe the Clintons’ historical immunity to their party’s remorseless decay will not continue. Second, the fact of a female candidate will send the media into orgies of diversity celebration. Right now, it’s the GOP with the star blacks (Rice), Hispanics (Martinez) and immigrants (Schwarzenegger), while the Dems are a sad collection of angry white males (Kennedy and Byrd). Were Condi to run against, say, Joe Biden in 2008, the press would play it strictly on the issues. But if it’s Bill Frist against Hill, get set for a non-stop cavalcade of stories with little inset photos of Mrs. Thatcher, Mrs. Gandhi, Mrs. Bandaranaike (Sri Lanka), Golda Meir, Benazir Bhutto, Helen Clark (New Zealand), etc., etc., and headlines like “Is America Ready?” that manage to imply ever so subtly that not voting for Hillary is the 2008 equivalent of declaring that Negroes are three-fifths of a human being. Yes, yes, I know — cattle futures, HillaryCare . . . That’ll be 16 years old on Election Day and nobody — or not enough — will care. Third, the senator is a quick learner. Her initial campaign stops in the 2000 race were embarrassing: stiff, evasive, that robotic I Speak Your Weight voice. By the end, she was almost charming — not lightly worn Fred-Astaire-romancing-Audrey-Hepburn charm; you could see she had to work at it. But nevertheless she did, and she succeeded. Smart folks adapt: For Republicans to assume they’ll be running against the Hillary of 1992 is a big mistake. When you look at her feints to the right in the post-9/11 era, what matters is not whether she believes them but that she’s the only Democrat with sufficient star quality to be able to ignore the deranged needs of UnableToMoveOn.org. Evan Bayh can’t — hence his pathetic vote against Condi. No male Democrat could get away with Hillary’s tentative moves away from Dem orthodoxy on abortion: Kerry was reduced to claiming that, while he personally believed life begins at conception, he would never let his deep personal beliefs interfere with his legislative program; Dean was practically offering to perform partial-birth abortions on volunteers from the crowd. But, if a woman runs as kinda-sorta-pro-life-ish, I’ll bet the NOW types decline to protest. Can Hillary be stopped? Obviously she can. But one lesson of the last 15 years is that the Democratic party is basically a dead husk — it’s as effective as whoever’s wearing it. In the Nineties, the Clintons swiped it. For the 2004 St. Vitus’s dance, Michael Moore and Barbra Streisand and MoveOn.org seized it and couldn’t make it work. But, if Hill takes it back . . . Don’t get me wrong. Biennial incremental gains by the GOP are set to continue for a while yet. But don’t be surprised if November 2008 is the usual day of disaster for Democrats in the Senate, House, and states, with the exception of Hillary’s election as president — and Chelsea’s stunning victory in the North Dakota governor’s race.
To Hill and back.
Giuliani already announced he isnt running for Governor or Senator in 06. She is going to be reelected in a landslide in NY.
She definitely will run in '06. The fun will be in watching her declare that she will finish her term and not run for the presidency and absolutely no one will believe her.
"Who can defeat this Be-otch and send her back to Chappaqua????? George Allen? Mitt Romney? Jeb Bush?"
Dr. Condoleeza Rice.
This is very true, she can almost get hysterical.
Remember that one speech where she was literally screeching? People posted a link to it here (I wish I had it) and it was so strange. She really lost it. It's almost like she becomes possessed.
Hmmmm. Maybe she does. ;)
If she runs for pres we will have to, and will have the opportunities to, destroy the current news media.
"...that robotic I Speak Your Weight voice. "
Mark always has some good ones!
No doubt she's running - when Bill went with Bush to the Pope's funeral, he couldn't stop gushing about how great it was to be back on Air Force One.
And the country will eat it up. It will be 1992 nostalgia all over again. Nirvana instead of Fleetwood Mac. Carville and Begala. The press won't be able to shut up about her. Bill back in the White House as the "first man". Ahhh....
If she gets elected, I promise I'm moving to the Congo.
What if things really get stirred up and a candidate out there runs to the LEFT of Hillary if she tries to go to much to the middle?
God preserve North Dakota!
Thanks for the ping, Pokie! I'm going to hope that Steyn is wrong on this one and that sHrillary will never become president. (My dog will go deaf from the shrieking during the campaign, I'm afraid.)
I don't know about you, but in some ways, I'm still exhausted from the drama (and leftist fraud) of the last election. It is just way too soon to be looking at who the GOP candidate is. Some bright meteors may burn out (think of poor Bernie Kerik) and some that seem long-shots now may accomplish things in the next couple of years that bring them to the top (Barbour? Coleman? Condi? Allen?) Whoever it may be, know that the GOP has a much, much better bench than the Dems.
Ha! Steyn can turn a phrase!
Theoretically that could happen, but remember that Hillary has the highest negative approval ratings of any potential candidate out there. There will be about 49% of the people voting to STOP HILLARY, and I think most people would cast their vote strategically in order to accomplish that.
I'm a woman and you are quite right. When Hillary speaks I turn off TV or radio. I can't remember the last time I heard a more annoying voice.
BTTT - I'm in transition between church and Girl Scouts. Where are my dry shoes?
Please God, spare us from another President Clinton.
"What if things really get stirred up and a candidate out there runs to the LEFT of Hillary if she tries to go to much to the middle?"
That would be even more entertaining than if Howard Dean had gotten the Dem nomination in 2004. I relish the possibility, even if remote.
Golly! what a choice phrase!
The election is not wrapped up yet. Most did not think she would win as a carpet-bagger in New York. I laughed at the thought of her winning there. She did.
I agree that the opposition to her will be great, but there is nothing worse than assuming victory over someone who has never had her ambition satisfied.
I will go door to door to help defeat her, if she is nominated. I think her health problems will get in the way. Collapsing during a speech is not a good sign.
Bill should be dead by 2008. I think he would help her in many ways. Some people like him (though I can't see why).
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