2008: Democrats' Year That Wasn't

National Review Online: The Party, Now Splintered, Was Supposed To Enjoy A Banner Year

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Victor Davis Hanson.

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For the Democratic Party, 2008 was supposed to have been an ideal year. There’s an unpopular, lame-duck Republican president presiding over an iffy economy and an unpopular war. Plus, the Democrats won big in the 2006 elections, and there’s no Republican vice president in the race to draw on the power of incumbency.

No wonder that for much of 2007, the polls suggested that the only mystery would be by how much Sen. Hillary Clinton would beat former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the general election.

Indeed, for Democrats not to walk into the presidency in November 2008, the conventional wisdom was that the absolute unthinkable would have to transpire.

And now it almost has.

The Republicans have done something unimaginable in making Sen. John McCain the presumptive nominee. And so have the Democrats in allowing their primary season to drag on.

On the Republican side, McCain was running far behind in the primaries not too long ago, and his maverick positions enraged influential conservatives. Yet he proved to be the only Republican candidate who had any chance of capturing moderate and independent voters. And for all their bluster, most die-hard conservatives now seem like they’re going to hold their noses and vote Republican.

On the Democratic side, Clinton was stopped cold - but still has yet to be finished off by Barack Obama. Now we can expect months more of infighting. As the Democrats raise tens of millions to destroy themselves, McCain can only sit back and smile.

With Obama the likely nominee, we can also expect to hear more from, and about, his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Reporters no doubt are scanning Rev. Wright’s massive corpus of texts and DVDs for more hate speech.

Even before the Wright controversy, the Democratic vote had been split heavily along racial lines - whites for Clinton, blacks for Obama - in certain states, including the all-important Ohio. That’s not a good sign for a party that’s supposed to be a model of racial transcendence.

Clinton will weaken Obama for months to come. There is no reason to believe the former front-runner will quit the Democratic race soon, even though Obama has an all-but-insurmountable delegate lead.

Clinton has momentum and should win sizably in Pennsylvania later this month. Millions want to vote for her in the remaining primaries. By convention time, she could even end up with a slight lead in the aggregate popular vote.

Clinton has also so far won all the big states that will be in play in the general election. She knows the superdelegates were created precisely for a year like this, and so will argue that these Democratic pros are there to check the exuberance of a liberal electorate that might actually nominate someone untested like Obama. Had Clinton run under Republican primary rules, her wins would have already sealed for her the nomination.

Clinton can also point to polls showing that an Obama nomination will lose more Democrats to McCain than would her own. In other words, she thinks that she has every reason to continue her last-chance campaign, even as it hurts her party, Obama, and the Clinton legacy.

Finally, no matter who ultimately becomes the Democratic nominee, it may not be so easy to run a campaign against McCain on the notion that everything is falling apart - or that it is his fault.

It is not at all clear that the Iraq war will get worse, despite the latest news of Shiite in-fighting. Most Iraqis - especially the Sunnis of Anbar - have long wanted the Shiite government to put down the militias of Moqtada al-Sadr. If this happens, the good news of the surge could get better.

At home, we not are yet in a recession, and may avoid one altogether. For now, despite financial jitters, mortgage fears and a weakening American financial position abroad, unemployment, interest rates, and inflation all remain fairly low - and could still stay that way through the summer.

Many of our problems like gas prices and deficits transcend politics - or at least were due to bipartisan mistakes of both Congress and the administration and won’t play out to partisan advantage. There is no Democratic or Republican answer to stop Iran from getting the bomb, or to bring a roguish but increasingly wealthy and powerful China into the global community.

By late summer, a rested John McCain will try to reassure Americans that he will run their country just like he ran his campaign. A wounded Barack Obama will have won a Pyrrhic nomination. And an angry Hillary Clinton will be gone - but the latest addition to the Clinton legacy not forgotten.

[glock4me]

The dems are blinded by their hatred of Bush. They would like to think that Hillary and Osama going down to the wire is because they are both such solid candidates. Whoever eventually wins, the other half of the party will have hard feelings. Compounding the problem is that McCain is a very liberal repub and may be an attractive candidate for Hillary supporters if Osama wins (probably less so for Osama fans if Hillary wins).

Keep in mind that I was lead to believe (by the mass media) that Kerry was a sure thing on the eve of the 2004 election. If Bush were constitutionally allowed to run for a 3rd term, I think he would have a reasonable chance to win again (causing massive lib suicides), not because he is Mount Rushmore material, but because Hillary and Osama start with 45% of the country automatically voting against them.

[b-easy63]

The Democratic party isn''''t imploding. We have two very qualified candidates running campaigns. At the democratic national convention, a winner will be decided. Then that winner will go on to be our next President in 2009.

It''''s all very simple. The NRO would LIKE to think that they''''re gaining an advantage. They want you to think that too.

Don''''t let them.

Posted by IRLiberal at 12:51 PM : Apr 07, 2008


Don''t delude yourself. This is why Kerry losing stunned so many Democrats--you did not face the truth: you ran two candidates that are anamolies for the Presidency in a year when a Dem in office could have been a sure thing. Besides gender and race, both are hampered by gender and race also. But in addition to that, Obama suffers by affiliation to a questionable person while Hillary''s deficit is rampant dishonesty and the perception she and many of her supporters are as corrupt, dishonest and incompetent as any neo con politician. In an environment like that, McCain could indeed win, because Independents will decide the election not Democrats--and by and large, Independents DESPISE HRC and Obama and McCAin now split those votes almost equally (Obama has a slight majority)

[b-easy63]

am one of the 28% who will vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee, so it suits me that he doesn''''t have time to campaign in the big states.

Posted by Pattypye at 03:54 PM : Apr 07, 2008


And I represent a faction of the 55% of Independents who will never vote for Hillary no matter what. Due to my income bracket and the hit it would take under HRC---I''d be more than satisfied with a McCain or Obama win/ Like most Independents--we are "anyone except Hillary" people. :)

[b-easy63]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/
2008/04/is-hillarys-muc.html

Obama the Scamma strikes out AGAIN with his campaign krap!

Hillary told the hospital/insurance company story right in the first place!

Posted by RowdyTexan2 at 07:19 PM : Apr 07, 2008


WRONG. Hillary simply did not tell a complete lie this time. The woman and the baby were covered by insurance at the time of the death. The clinic affiliated with the hospital NEVER had seen the woman and the other clinic which did admit that they imposed financial restrictions on some patients indicated they had not treated that particular woman in 5 years. What is left is a story where the woman and baby supposedly were left to die due to no insurance--that is a lie==they had insurance. The real story (if correct) is that the woman and baby were allowed to not have proper prenatal care due (perhaps) to no insurance or the actions of the other, unaffiliated hospital. Like Hillary, you conveniently skip over any information which will not allow you to tell your version unchallenged. The real story is in the details--something you don''t seem to be good at assimilating.

[b-easy63]

EUREKA!!!! It turns out HRC DID actually sign a pledge agreeing not only to not campaign in Mi and FL but also agreeing to NOT seat the delegates. She signed it in the fall of 07.

http://www.democraticunderground.


com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&
ad
dr
ess=385x115322

Now, of course she wants to renege, because what has occurred does not favor her. Sounds like someone just wants to cheat..er I mean... win..any way she can even if it means breaking her SIGNED pledge. So much for what that woman promises-- Hillary will lie, break promises, backstab or do anything to suit herself--NOT the country--but Hillary does it FOR Hillary, whenever following the rules or the law is not convenient.

[rowdytexan2]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/is-hillarys-muc.html

Obama the Scamma strikes out AGAIN with his campaign krap!

Hillary told the hospital/insurance company story right in the first place!

[rowdytexan2]

All the way to convention, Hillary and get your support!

Go! Go! Go! Roh! Roh! Roh!

[Pattypye]

"The longer Hillary stays in the race- which she cannot win without destroying the dem party at the convention- the less time Obama has to go back to those bigger states to campaign. Every minute this primary lasts is a minute lost in the general. Dems may very well lose to McCain this fall."
Posted by dinslc at 12:39 PM : Apr 07, 2008

I am one of the 28% who will vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee, so it suits me that he doesn''t have time to campaign in the big states.

[jabberwonk]

John McCain to wife Cindy a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/7/1352/19483" %u201CAt least I don%u2019t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c*nt.%u201D /a

blockquote trol7lop [trol-uhp] %u2013noun embed width="100" height="24" src="http://cache.lexico.comdictionaryaudiolunaT05T0524200.mp3" /embed
1. an immoral or promiscuous woman, esp. a prostitute.
2. an untidy or slovenly woman; slattern.

[Origin: 1605%u201315; earlier trollops; perh. akin to troll1]

%u2014Related forms
trol7lop7y, adjective /blockquote

[stopkidding]

the Republicans'' problems won''t go away in the down-ticket races. McCain will have negative coat tails.

[pdchapin]

The long primary season for the Democrats is the symptom not the cause of their problems. They have two very weak candidates. The fact that Obama couldn''t put away Clinton with 12 wins in a row indicates that there''s a lot of people in his own party who don''t like him. And Clinton has always been widely disliked. McCain and his allies, who wouldn''t hold back like Obama and Clinton do to each other, will smoke whoever the Democrats nominate.

[irliberal]

The Democratic party isn''t imploding. We have two very qualified candidates running campaigns. At the democratic national convention, a winner will be decided. Then that winner will go on to be our next President in 2009.

It''s all very simple. The NRO would LIKE to think that they''re gaining an advantage. They want you to think that too.

Don''t let them.

[Pattypye]

Why would all these states schedule primary elections if there was no expectation that they would come to fruition? Perhaps it is the system itself that should be criticized rather than Sen. Clinton.

My grandson''s little league team lost a ball game last Saturday 17-1 but they played until the last out.

[dinslc]

The longer Hillary stays in the race- which she cannot win without destroying the dem party at the convention- the less time Obama has to go back to those bigger states to campaign. Every minute this primary lasts is a minute lost in the general. Dems may very well lose to McCain this fall.