Posted on 11/07/2004 7:04:43 AM PST by shortstop
How much of a beaten, beleaguered, hapless lot of lost pols are the Democrats after Tuesday's ballot box mugging?
Curly Howard didn't get slapped around as much by Moe as did this crowd of Gallup Poll panhandlers.
Good grief, the Washington Generals score more often against the Harlem Globetrotters.
But wait!
It gets worse.
The Iraqi air force had more bench strength than this party, which has about as much of a future at the moment as Yasser Arafat - only less so.
It's one thing to lose an election as John Kerry did.
It's quite another to look into your party's crystal ball and see that Ralph Nader has a better chance of getting elected to the presidency in 2008 than anyone claiming to be a Democrat.
If you were a Democratic Party honcho, which has to feel like presiding over a cootie convention, trying to figure out how to get this Elba of the electorate back on some semblance of viability has to be as daunting a task as rehabilitating Jack Kevorkian's image as a family doctor.
Where to start?
It's a small thing, really, actually more cathartic than anything else, but jettisoning party Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who comes off as the spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Henchmen, would be a tiny step toward restoring a scintilla of dignity to the Democratic cause.
After all, since he's presided over a political party's decline rivaling O.J. Simpson's fall from grace, McAuliffe has more than earned his place in political history as the ebola virus of the Electoral College.
Possible replacements?
Well, there's always former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, or perhaps recently unemployed Sen. Tom Daschle, who would seem to have the inside track since the Democrats wouldn't have to pay for moving expenses.
As for potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2008, the list is shorter than likely husband material for Ellen DeGeneres.
And what very, very few White House aspirants there are would hardly inspire anyone to start whistling the theme to ``Camelot.''
To begin with, can we please, please, please dispense with this Ezra Pound-like delusion that New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Eva Peron of Chappaqua, has any remote prospects to get elected to the presidency of the United States?
Really now, with the possible exception of Ted Kennedy, is there a more polarizing figure on the U.S. political scene than the Mary Todd Lincoln of the left?
Or put more simply: Charles Manson will win parole before the Typhoon Mary of managed care ever haunts the West Wing.
Why does Clinton enjoy a certain counterfeit political currency among the chattering class? Well, compared with the current crop of potential presidential candidates, to some the Kitten With a Tax Code looks downright Margaret Thatcheresque.
Certainly John Edwards can lay some claim to be the heir apparent, but four years between elections can either be a swell opportunity to put together a base constituency or a descent into more obscurity than the Sinclair Broadcasting Corp.
There are precious few others. Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh is young (49) and certainly would help the party reclaim Midwestern voters, as would Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsak.
The same logic holds true with North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, 54, in trying to recapture a Southern constituency.
Still, it's abundantly obvious as the Democrats sift through the detritus of Tuesday's results that the dearth of leadership makes the PLO look like a pillar of transitional orderliness.
How bad is it? Howard Dean is probably looking to 2008 and practicing his primal scream.
Uh-oh.
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I liked that "Eva Peron of Chappaqua" line too, LOL
If this is a Lib, he sure gets it a lot more than the others!
You have to be kidding!
Great articel! Thanks for posting it. What a wonderful way to start out Sunday morning!
They would be more competitive in the Midwest. but I seriously doubt either of them could win a Democratic primary. They haven't got the 60's anti-war backgrounds that seem to be mandatory.
Pretty bold statement about a party that just nominated John Kerry. The fact is Hillary will be the Democrats nominee in 2008. We don't know who the Republican nominee will be, which tells me talk of Hillary's remote prospects is more than premature, it's downright stupidity.
Unbelievable. Thanks for posting it.
"the Typhoon Mary of managed care"
That would be the "Typhoid" Mary of managed care.
I agree with you about Bayh, Vilsack and Easley. They would truly be the best bet for the Dems. They simply won't be nominated. This party has to sink deeper before they get a clue. Hopefully anyway..
The same logic holds true with North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, 54, in trying to recapture a Southern constituency.
Democrats have two options right now and neither of them are pretty.
#1) Keep pushing people like Kerry, Dean, H.Clinton to the forefront of the party, and settle with 40-45% of the nationwide support, and a constant neverending 55-45/60-40 defict in the Senate and 30-40 seats short in the house.
#2) Admit there's a problem, change gears, push guys like Bayh or Easley to the front. Watch the 15-20% lunatic fringe throw there hands up in disgust and form there own party, fracturing the party.
Either one isn't much of a plan but they don't have alot of options. Socialism has been reject by the American people time and time again.
There best hope would be option 3,.. Trying to create a conservative/economical divide in the Republican Party. The only thing Republicans need to do is to STAY TO THE RIGHT!!!!!!
Say for example, GOP suffers a setback in 2006 and gives back a couple seats in the Senate and House.. DO NOT COME TO THE CENTER, that will be prime pickens for the DNC to manufacture a candidate to torpedo the party. If the GOP stays to the right with positions of free enterprise/capitalism and social conservative values, we will never be defeated.
The free enterprise/capitalists, libertarians like Neal Boortz, are smart enough to know that the best vehicle for success is the Republican Party. They are not going to throw away their wealth and financial security for marijuana, unless the GOP gets weak in the knees and starts jacking up taxes and increases spending even more.
That being said.. Bush.. CUT SPENDING HARD, CUT TAXES HARD, END GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS. The American people are with you!!
Whoa! Coming from Ruth, this is a huge admission of failure.
He has a talk radio show on Saturday mornings that is sooo liberal, I can't stand to listen to him.
He's an self-proclaimed liberal and he sees the writing on the wall (of course, he's in Florida, where the news was overwhelmingly bad for Dems, they lost the Presidency, a Dem US Senate seat, and the FL House and Senate went heavily Republican.)
In Florida, biggest blow to the Dems has to be the large percentage of Hispanics that voted for the Republican party. The Hispanic population is growing much faster than the black population, and will be an even larger voting block in the future.)
Look at it this way--how do you get a big, burly, beer-swillin' union iron worker to work in unison with a birkenstocked hippy calling for "gay rights"? That's why their strategy is 'vote for us because....we're not them'.
Edwards was young and from the south. He couldn't even get his own home town.
I don't believe the Democrats have a problem with their candidates as much as they have a problem with their message of Socialism. People don't want it.
The article reads like a trubute to Rodney Dangerfield.
Vilsack was the vice-presidential wanna be that the Iowa Poll showed would cause Kerry to do worse in Iowa that any of the others. He is not going anywhere. He could not even keep Iowa as a Blue State!
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