Posted on 10/23/2005 4:29:32 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy
With hysterical glee, Democrats believe they smell blood around the Bush Administration and Republicans in general.
Admittedly, at first glance, the situation does appear bleak for the Republicans: dwindling support for the Iraq war, Tom Delay's indictment and arrest, Bill Frist's insider trading investigation, the Harriet Miers rupture, and polls that show a generic vote would favor Democrats over Republicans in 2006 by 11%. Oh, to be a Democrat, bolstered by such news after years of humiliating defeat at the polls!
Unfortunately for Democrats, none of this seems to be rubbing off in their favor. According to a recent national poll, only 32% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party. Hardly the resounding paradigm shift that the Dem's are counting on to take back the House and Senate next year, or win the White House a couple years later. But desperate people often cling to desperate hopes.
Enter Hillary Clinton.
Many Democrats, especially the Hollywood leftists, believe Clinton is the last, best hope for presidential success in 2008. Even Republicans like Dick Morris, who personally can't stand Hillary, predict that she has a good chance of winning, especially if there is no perceptible improvement in the Iraq situation and if Republicans do not offer up an equally well-known candidate. But the fact that many Democrats see Clinton as the best they've got, or at least the only really viable choice, is indicative of how desperate and empty the party has become.
Nevertheless, the political triangulation around Hillary is astounding, and typically Clintonian. With psychophantic predictability, the old-stream media and Hollywood are pulling out the stops to promote her. This is certainly because she is immensely popular with the chablis-sipping leftist elite, and possibly because there are some in the party who pragmatically recognize the dearth of potential candidates even slightly palatable to the wide American electorate.
In any event, her support among these elites is undeniably widespread. Democratic strategist and commentator Susan Estrich, who just a couple years ago predicted that Hillary could never win the presidency because she was America's most divisive politician, is now pimping Clinton as the probable next president. Several former Clinton aides, including the recently disgraced Sandy Berger, have signed up to provide "technical assistance" to ABC TV's Tuesday night fantasy "Commander-in-Chief".
The New York Daily News reports that Clinton's operatives see the the show as a barometer of how Hillary might fare in 2008. These socially and politically insular Democrats, especially in Hollywood and New York City, honestly believe that Clinton has widespread appeal and popularity. And why not? Everybody they know loves her.
The truth may not be so gilded, or as optimistic. In fact, there are signs emerging that point to a rough road for Clinton, even among members of her own party. This no more true than among the rabid Bush-hating anti-Iraq War factions, which have emerged as a mainstream component of an ever left-drifting party, not to mention the biggest source of Democratic fundraising in recent memory.
It is from here, among groups like MoveOn.org, Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan supporters, that the real power base in the party steadily grows. These groups have made it clear that Clinton's refusal to dramatically condemn the war in Iraq, or call for the return of American troops immediately, will cost her support, at least in the short term.
Shrewd politicians like Ted Kennedy, who has effectively aligned himself with the more vocal Bush-hating groups, both in his associations and his words, recognizes this dynamic. That may explain why he recently said he will not support Clinton in 2008, in the likely event John Kerry runs again.
Kennedy may be a slurring, womanizing, cowardly drunk, but he is not stupid: he knows that it is Kerry, not Hillary, who is more likely to benefit from the support of the angry left and their piles of money. After all, Kerry was able to do this in 2004. Even Cindy Sheehan, MoveOn.org's resident lackey, is urging fellow Democrats not to support "pro-war" Hillary, accusing her of "sounding like Rush Limbaugh". Ouch.
But Estrich says that Hillary has the benefit of being well-liked among Democrats, like her husband Bill, and unlike Al Gore and John Kerry. However, in the same article two years ago, she said that many women, including Democratic women, don't like her at all, and that the more Democrats talked up Hillary, the more money flowed into the coffers of the Republican Party. Estrich has obviously concluded that any Democrat prospect, even one she has personally identified as unable to appeal to a broad range of voters, is better than no Democrat at all. And there lies the problem for Estrich and the rest of her party.
Most Republican strategists believe that a Hillary presidential run will render results more illustrative of Estrich's former predictions, i.e. a boon for Republican fundraisers and crushing defeat for Democrats. Hillary would certainly ignite a huge bon-fire of repellent disgust beneath the Republican base. If the Republicans nominate Condi Rice, who by many accounts would eat Hillary alive in a head-to-head intellectual matchup, and with Hillary's base confined to elites, the Democrats might just end up wishing they had run John Kerry again.
At least, then, the humiliating Democratic defeat would not come as a total surprise.
"Reaganite"
No self-respecting Reaganite would ever support John McCain for the presidency - NEVER!
And I never said it would jump over to the D's - what I said was that he would SIDE WITH THEM if the right wave came along. Look how long he bashed Bush - and then he finally jumped onboard - because things were looking good.
Bill Kristol would stab anybody in the back given the right opportunity. I've watched him do it so I'm not making this up.
Balderdash. Reagan himself campaigned for McCain for Senate, and McCain was a staunch Reagan ally in the House and the Senate.
You aren't one of those completely illogical McCain haters who seem to think he's essentially a D because he likes CFR and is friends with Kerry are you?
I don't hate McCain .. I just don't trust him at all. His EGO is way to large for his intellect.
If she runs in 2008, and I am not convinced she will, she will not be able to hide as she did in NY.
We can beat any DemocRAT if we ran someone like Governor Sanford from South Carolina!
Your dreaming.
Not that I oppose Sanford, but saying he's the strongest candidate we have in terms of electability just doesn't last outside of a conservatives wet dream.
I agree that McCain has a bit of an ego, and I think he's a bit of a loose cannon myself.
But even in 2000, there was a decent case to support him. He would have destroyed Gore, none of this close vote counting in Florida stuff, and while Bush has proved good on foreign policy, Kristol's position that Bush was talking too much like an isolationist during the campaign were at least somewhat justified. I think saying Kristol isn't a good conservative or Reaganite because of his support for McCain in 2000 (which I did not, at all) simply doesn't hold up to reason.
I actually think that conservatives should give McCain a second look in 2008. He's good on the WOT and Pork Barrell spending, which will be two huge issues in 2008, and he'd utterly destroy Hillary.
Like you, I'm not sure McCain has the temperment to be president, and some of his tendencies on a whole host of lesser issues concerns me. That said, they are just that, lesser issues. I will take anybody who will A. Win the WOT, and B. Will beat hillary. His C. qualification of pork barrell spending fighting is a big + that at least makes up for some of his more minor negatives.
I'm taking a wait-and-see approach for now. If someone else who has less of an ego proves they can go toe-to-toe with Hillary and come up on top, and convinces me they have the guts and determination to win the WOT, I will support them over McCain. But I'm not going to write him off either.
"If the Republicans nominate Condi Rice, who by many accounts would eat Hillary alive in a head-to-head intellectual matchup...."
Yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about. RUN CONDI RUN!
"Where as everyone I know, detest Dems."
You must live in a Red State for sure.
"The big question is going to be who runs against her for sure.....Allen looks interesting and I am curious about who else is a serious possibility."
I've said all along that Condi Rice is the only GOP candidate who can beat Hillary. Don't underestimate the Clintons.
Indeed! Run Condi. Run back to the think tank from whence you were spawned, but, like Frau Klinton, stay away from the oval office.
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