Wonky Wednesday: A Prediction
As part of the effort to keep the lights on while Jason takes a break, I will be posting here on Wednesdays. LiberalGeek suggested calling my contributions, “Wonky Wednesdays,” and I couldn’t think of anything better.
In Delaware’s unique corner of the blogosphere, liberals and conservatives read and even link to each other. For instance, motnewbie chimed in with his thoughts on Jason’s abrupt departure:
He has a respectable, high level of intelligence behind what he posts, then he just goes into a partisan rant that makes me want to scream, “You idiot,” at the monitor.
I imagine, or hope, that I don’t incite the same reaction in my readers. I don’t know that anything I write could be called ranting. I am more likely to bore you to tears than to make you scream.
However, given the unabashed partisanship of Delawareliberal, I will set aside my customary careful prose and nuanced reasoning, and offer a simple prediction:
A Democrat will be elected president in 2008.
Mind you I don’t know which Democrat, but I am confident in the outcome.
Whence my confidence? It’s the war, stupid. Two-thirds of voters don’t like the war and don’t want to escalate, while the leading Republican candidates support Bush. It’s that simple.
There’s no need for nuanced analysis on this point. 2008 will be about Iraq, just as 2006 was. Eighteen months from now, with our troops still hunkered down in Baghdad, the GOP nominee will be running on a record of supporting an unpopular war. The Democratic nominee will be running on a platform of extracting out troops from a messy, sectarian conflict that has nothing to do with our national interest. You do the math.
Tags: 2008 Presidential
A follow up prediction: The Republicans will spend the following four years screaming for investigations and attacking the Democratic President.
Again, there’s no need for nuanced analysis on this.
Welcome on board, Tom. Reasonable analysis. Unfortunately, it is probably the same analysis that was made in 1968 and maybe in ’72. At least Dick had the sense to resign.
I’m hoping you are right. I also hope that we actually get a good Dem to hold the office. I would hate for it to be Hillary and get 4-8 more years of what we’ve already seen.
Hey Geek, while you’re fondly invoking the Spirit of ’68, why not cast HRC as Ed Muskie, and BO as George McGovern? Let’s see now, how many states did McGovern carry?
I was actually thinking of RFK and what could have been. You think we would have ever known the name of the Watergate Hotel if Bobby hadn’t been killed?
“You Idiot!” Kidding.
Welcome to the cesspool. This is becoming one ol’ college party, ain’t it?
Wow. This is like that April Fool’s Day when all the newspaper cartoonists drew each other’s columns.
trouble in Dem-land:
UPDATE: Maureen Dowd Column Incites Hillary-Obama War of Words
Editor and Publisher ^ | February 21, 2007 | E&P Staff
NEW YORK Maureen Dowd’s column in The New York Times today, in which she quoted former Bill Clinton supporter David Geffen offering a few caustic comments, has incited a strong Hillary Clinton campaign attack on Geffen — and the candidate he now favors, Sen. Barack Obama.
Then Obama’s team fired back.
“Everybody in politics lies, but they [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling,” Geffen had said.
Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson released the following statement this morning: “While Senator Obama was denouncing slash and burn politics yesterday, his campaign’s finance chair was viciously and personally attacking Senator Clinton and her husband.
“If Senator Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign and return his money.
“While Democrats should engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, there is no place in our party or our politics for the kind of personal insults made by Senator Obama’s principal fundraiser.”
Obama’s team responded a few hours later. Communications director Robert Gibbs just released the following statement:
“We aren’t going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters. It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom. It is also ironic that Senator Clinton lavished praise on Monday and is fully willing to accept today the support of South Carolina State Sen. Robert Ford, who said if Barack Obama were to win the nomination, he would drag down the rest of the Democratic Party because he’s black.’”
Among other things, Hollywood and music mogul Geffen had told Dowd, “God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton?” and “Obama is inspirational, and he’s not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family. Americans are dying every day in Iraq. And I’m tired of hearing James Carville on television.”
More from Dowd:
— “I don’t think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person,” Mr. Geffen says, adding that if Republicans are digging up dirt, they’ll wait until Hillary’s the nominee to use it. “I think they believe she’s the easiest to defeat.”
— She is overproduced and overscripted. “It’s not a very big thing to say, ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t,” Mr. Geffen says. “She’s so advised by so many smart advisers who are covering every base. I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms.”
— Once, David Geffen and Bill Clinton were tight as ticks. Mr. Geffen helped raise some $18 million for Bill and slept in the Lincoln Bedroom twice. Bill chilled at Chateau Geffen. Now, the Dreamworks co-chairman calls the former president “a reckless guy” who “gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country.”
— They fell out in 2000, when Mr. Clinton gave a pardon to Marc Rich after rebuffing Mr. Geffen’s request for one for Leonard Peltier. “Marc Rich getting pardoned? An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes or face justice?” Mr. Geffen says. “Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in. Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”
now which Dem is going to win?
the war may be unpopular, but I don’t think “Run away and hide” is a winning campaign slogan.
Re: Hillary-Obama War of Words: Check out this Kos entry titled Obama’s Got a DEVASTATING Rapid Response Team.
Excerpts: How did Obama respond? With a friggen wrecking ball. And within the same news cycle to boot…this is EXACTLY the kind of rapid response we need from our ’08 candidates. Fast, focused, and devastating. If Obama doesn’t win the nomination, hopefully his rapid response team will join up with whomever does.
What about the Republican’s slogan “Run away and hide from reality” ?
You call that money in the bank? I don’t.
Good to see the Obama rapid respnse team is ont he ball. Kerry and Gore sucked at that.
I don’t see a meaningful analogy between 2008 and either 1968 or 1972. I think the 2006 results are much more relevant.
It wasn’t that long ago, remember? Incumbent senators were beaten in Virginia and Montana by candidates who ran against the war. In Montana, Jon Tester, a farmer with a buzz cut, was unafraid to campaign against the Patriot Act. In Virginia, James Webb, who served as Reagan’s Navy secretary, campaigned with his son’s combat boots. There was nothing subtle or nuanced about their victories.
True. But in places where the Dem was wishy-washy on the war the results were not so good. Being a Dem ain’t the only requirement. Hillary, for example, is wishy-washy on the war and it would hurt her in the general election, if not the primary.
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Happycon,
Don’t you have to go do a lit drop for some out-of-state Green candidates or something?