This is the sort of thing that makes my day. Conservative columnist Bruce Bartlett writes at National Review:
As each day passes, it becomes increasingly clear that the Democrats will win the White House next year. It’s not quite 1932, but it’s getting close to a sure thing. All the energy is on their side, they are raising more money from more contributors, and there is little if any enthusiasm for the Republican candidates — even among Republicans.
Of course, one can never rule out the ability of the Democrats to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. But sometimes the trend in one party’s direction is so strong that even the grossest incompetence can’t keep it from winning. I think 2008 is shaping up as that kind of year for the Democrats.
From your fingers to the voting booth, Bruce.
He goes on:
At some point, politically sophisticated conservatives will have to recognize that no Republican can win in 2008 and that their only choice is to support the most conservative Democrat for the nomination. Call me crazy, but I think that person is Hillary Clinton.
Hey, Dennis Kucinich has my heart and John Edwards gets my money, but I’d be more than happy with a second Clinton Administration — with a Democratic majority in both houses, and some darned good progressives at Agriculture, HHS, Justice, and Interior (the four cabinet post I care most about).
Bartlett is not known as a master satirist. One can only hope he will be known for his prescience.
On the one hand, ANY Democratic president would be better than President Select Bush, with the primary exclusion of Lieberman. But I’m not happy with our current group of choices on the Democratic side. I’m hopeful of Obama, but I worry that he’s too much of a blank slate and political and campaign “consultants” will write upon him all the centrist crap that lost it for Kerry and Gore. I am distrustful of Clinton because I see her doing too much to triangulate and she — like her husband — spend way too much time listening to the “move to the center” folks at the DLC. This country needs to move left and a HARD left in order to even approach solving the ills foisted upon us by the Bush Administration. Finally, Edwards has some good things to say and has done some of the right things. I didn’t like how he handled the mess with Melissa and Amanda and I’ve put him “on probation” as far as my list of candidates are concerned. All three I watch with great interest but only a bit of hope.
I don’t think that there is a one among the Democratic crowd who will do what needs to be done once elected. I see any or all of them doing the “as a country we need to move on” thing instead of spending the considerable time and energy it will take to run down every instances of corruption and malfeasance from the current administration. Until and unless we shine a very bright light into every corner, exposing the cronyism, and corruption, the lies and the misleading, we are just setting the country up for a repeat in another few years. Ford allowed us to “move on” with his pardon to President Nexon and the Congress ignored the “cancer” that existed within those administrations. We are reaping what they sowed 3 decades ago. We have to learn from that mistake and punish ALL the guilty who have moved the country to where we are now: weak, divided, broke, scorned by the world, and vulnerable to every demagogue’s howling of eliminationist rhetoric.
A good strategy for the Republican Branch of the ruling (Republicrat) party would be to flood the primaries to make sure Hillary! gets nominated. She’s a polarizing enough figure - even among the left - where it might be their best chance of getting someone elected.
Bartlett might just be crazy like a fox.
This strikes me as one of the strongest crops of Democratic candidates in a long time — I’m surprised to hear so many people on the left complaining. I have serious reservations about HRC, but she’d make a better president than most of the crowd from last cycle. She might even be better than Bill was — and again, I have grave reservations about the kind of politics she and the DLC crowd represent.
All in all, I’m pretty hopeful. Politics is about compromise — I’m not looking for the second coming, just a halfway decent politician who will let those of us further left get some things done by changing the general direction of the country and getting us out of Iraq.
I think Bartlett is probably correct, and I (like The Gonzman) think to the extent that it turns out to be a contested election, an HRC candidacy is the only major both the most conservative and the only major possible Democratic candidate who might pull off a loss. So, he’s correct on the substance, but somehow I don’t see NR’s readers strategically pulling for Hillary. 15 years of villification is hard to undue.
And it looks like Murdoch is trying to buy Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal.
Dumbing the WSJ down to Fox standards would pretty much get rid of the dozen or so literate Republicans who didn’t jump ship with the Patriot Act, the Yellowcake Lie, “Mission Accomplished,” abstinence-only, Ralph Reed, Mike Brown’s FEMA (and his peers at other agencies), “The Decider,” and the rest of the continuous parade of deceit and incompetence.
Yep - I come from a Republican home, and we’re democrat all the way this year.
Be for her in the General? No. I already do know a few Republicans who are planning to vote Democrat in the Primary to try to push her to the nomination under the theory that she is the most hated candidate the Democrats have.
I don’t worry about it. Libertarians don’t have such silly things as primaries for those exact reasons. To easy for the rabble to fudge it.
I guess you have every right to try to tip the primary. I mean, I did it in 2000, driving an hour to my hometown from Ann Arbor and then back to vote for John McCain. He won my state, too. The difference was, I would have voted for him in the general election (John McCain of 2000, yes, not 2007). But, do what you must, right?
I’d be more than happy with a second Clinton Administration — with a Democratic majority in both houses, and some darned good progressives at Agriculture, HHS, Justice, and Interior (the four cabinet post I care most about).
How would you rate the progressiveness of Bill Clinton’s appointments to those posts?
Shalala was solid at HHS, Babbitt was passable at Interior, so was Reno at Justice. The less said about his USDA appointments the better.