When Kerry Loses
Things are looking worse for John Kerry, as the polling trends run against him in the critical closing days of the campaign. If all the Dems have for an October surprise is missing munitions in Iraq, it's not an election-winner because it begs this question: If Kerry had been president during the last term, would we have even been in Iraq to protect the munitions? Yes or no, the fact that it is a legitimate question is evidence enough that he would not be a trustworthy Commander in Chief in time of war.
So let's assume things will continue as they are, and Bush will win popular and electoral victories significant enough to accomplish what Hugh outlined in "If It's Not Close, The Can't Cheat." What can they do to reposition their party after neither a sitting Vice President or a Vietnam War veteran (did you know Kerry served in Vietnam?) can't beat a candidate they discount as deeply as the do George Bush?
It gets down to this: They will have to learn how to win two wars.
The first war, of course, is the foreign policy war. The Bush Doctrine will have prevailed over the Internationalist doctrine, and if they're honest, the Dems will see that this happened for good reason. Germany and France have done nothing to endear themselves to mainstream America over the last three years, and will further alienate us in the four years ahead. Much is written in MSM about how Bush has alienated them, but precious little has been written about how they have alienated us. The U.N. botched Sudan, has not supported Iraqi elections and is hamstrung on Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons. The price of the failure of the Internationalists to move a post-9/11 agenda forward will become very real to the Dems on November 3 -- and it's more than Patriot Fries and boycotts of French wine. It is the profound and possibly permanent diminishment of authority of Old Europe and the U.N.
To rebuild themselves, the Dems will have to stake out ground that begins to step away from the U.N. and Global Tests, but can they afford to embrace the Bush Doctrine? It seems their only two options are to try to stake out some definable middle ground, or to move to the right of Bush with an Old School Democrat, an interventionalist like Roosevelt, who in his day shook up isolationist Republicans. Either will be a challenge.
The second war is the moral war here at home. This spring, when Missouri put a ballot measure on its primary ballot that would forbid gay marriage, more people voted on the initiative than voted for governor, and it went down to flaming defeat. Read: Trouble for Dems, because moral issues turn out Republicans. This is likely to repeat in Ohio on November 2, where a gay marriage initiative will appear along with the Bush/Kerry choice.
If the Dems are looking at an Ohio loss on November and considering the role gay marriage had in their defeat, they will have to reconsider the value of their allegiance to their gay and lesbian constiuents. In many ways, this will be a harder battle for them than Iraq because what Josh McDowell termed "the new tolerance" has them in a bit of a sticky wicket. Old tolerance meant "I'll respect you and treat you decently even if I don't agree with you." The new tolerance force you to agree with those you don't agree with, or be a bigot. Tolerance, more specfically New Tolerance, is the religion of the Left, so much of the Democratic electorate will not show up for this war; they would rather have their party fail than fail the tolerance test.
There is no leader in the Democratic Party who seems capable of leading it through genuine change of this magnitude. But I'm a Christian, so I believe that God uses times of crisis and pain to strengthen us and move us in new directions. This model worked for America in the transition from the Great Depression to World War II, and it could work for the Democrats too. Out of the shambles of a Gore loss followed by a Kerry loss, both at the hands of the bumbler from Texas, they just might gain the strength, insight and commitment to reform themselves.
Or they could give birth to a Hitler.
So let's assume things will continue as they are, and Bush will win popular and electoral victories significant enough to accomplish what Hugh outlined in "If It's Not Close, The Can't Cheat." What can they do to reposition their party after neither a sitting Vice President or a Vietnam War veteran (did you know Kerry served in Vietnam?) can't beat a candidate they discount as deeply as the do George Bush?
It gets down to this: They will have to learn how to win two wars.
The first war, of course, is the foreign policy war. The Bush Doctrine will have prevailed over the Internationalist doctrine, and if they're honest, the Dems will see that this happened for good reason. Germany and France have done nothing to endear themselves to mainstream America over the last three years, and will further alienate us in the four years ahead. Much is written in MSM about how Bush has alienated them, but precious little has been written about how they have alienated us. The U.N. botched Sudan, has not supported Iraqi elections and is hamstrung on Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons. The price of the failure of the Internationalists to move a post-9/11 agenda forward will become very real to the Dems on November 3 -- and it's more than Patriot Fries and boycotts of French wine. It is the profound and possibly permanent diminishment of authority of Old Europe and the U.N.
To rebuild themselves, the Dems will have to stake out ground that begins to step away from the U.N. and Global Tests, but can they afford to embrace the Bush Doctrine? It seems their only two options are to try to stake out some definable middle ground, or to move to the right of Bush with an Old School Democrat, an interventionalist like Roosevelt, who in his day shook up isolationist Republicans. Either will be a challenge.
The second war is the moral war here at home. This spring, when Missouri put a ballot measure on its primary ballot that would forbid gay marriage, more people voted on the initiative than voted for governor, and it went down to flaming defeat. Read: Trouble for Dems, because moral issues turn out Republicans. This is likely to repeat in Ohio on November 2, where a gay marriage initiative will appear along with the Bush/Kerry choice.
If the Dems are looking at an Ohio loss on November and considering the role gay marriage had in their defeat, they will have to reconsider the value of their allegiance to their gay and lesbian constiuents. In many ways, this will be a harder battle for them than Iraq because what Josh McDowell termed "the new tolerance" has them in a bit of a sticky wicket. Old tolerance meant "I'll respect you and treat you decently even if I don't agree with you." The new tolerance force you to agree with those you don't agree with, or be a bigot. Tolerance, more specfically New Tolerance, is the religion of the Left, so much of the Democratic electorate will not show up for this war; they would rather have their party fail than fail the tolerance test.
There is no leader in the Democratic Party who seems capable of leading it through genuine change of this magnitude. But I'm a Christian, so I believe that God uses times of crisis and pain to strengthen us and move us in new directions. This model worked for America in the transition from the Great Depression to World War II, and it could work for the Democrats too. Out of the shambles of a Gore loss followed by a Kerry loss, both at the hands of the bumbler from Texas, they just might gain the strength, insight and commitment to reform themselves.
Or they could give birth to a Hitler.
posted by Laer at 8:38 PM
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