Next Week's Political News Today

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Bartholomew Roberts

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The big story for next week is going to be how the inexperience of the 527s caused Kerry to lose through a poorly managed and conflicted get-out-the-vote effort... there may even be a little discussion of illegal coordination between the Kerry campaign and these 527s.

From a gunowner perspective, the news will be that there are a lot of prominent Republican gun-grabbers who are setting their sights on 2008. Pataki is one of them. McCain will be another. We won't have much rest after this election before we will have to consider how to either convert one of the grabbers or get a solid pro-RKBA Republican running for 2008. I think Sen. Bill Frist of TN may be an option.
 
Most OK politicians give me a headache and I would never wish them on the rest of the country. There are two recent exceptions.

J.C. Watts far exceeded my expectations. I was starting to really like the guy and then he retired. He's still a young man and I often wonder what he is going to do next.

Tom Coburn was our representative from 94-2000. Then he followed his pledge and gave up his seat. He's had 4 years now back at his medical practice and is now running for Senate. It is darn close. I _hope_ he is going to be elected on Tuesday. He would make a great Senator since he is always looking at "the big picture" rather than just what pork would be good for OK. He would be a dream President. The media would have heart failure for sure.

(I like C. Rice myself. I would love to see the GOP nominate her for Vice President in 2004. Another first for the GOP. First black person on a major ticket. Hopefully first women to be Vice President. I come from academia so maybe I just like people that talk the way she does. Heck, it would be fine with me to have Powell and Rice both on the ticket. Flip a coin to see who gets to be on top! That would _really_ screw with the minority voters!)

Gregg
 
I like Rice; but I don't see anyone going from never having held any elective office to President of the United States in the next four years. I think the hardest part would be convincing her to run; but I'd be interested to see what she had to say.

Powell is probably a nice-guy; but he was a general for too long and my gut feeling is that he sees a benevolent all-powerful government as a good thing in far too many cases for us to share much political ground.

Frist isn't my ideal but he does have two things going for him: He is already interested in running in 2008 and he is the only Republican candidate who has expressed any interest so far who has a pro-gun voting record.

However, right now we have plenty of time to look for better candidates for 2008.
 
Bartholomew, I wish I could share your confidence about a Bush win. It just seems impossible for me to feel that comfortable.
 
Well, I've definitely been wrong before and even been wrong in a big way; but I don't make a habit of it and I've been following this one pretty closely.

My big blindspot is that most of this information is based on polls and assumes both that the polls are basically correct while at the time making some large assumptions about what the polls did miss. I've got good evidence to support it. Check out these two blogs for examples:

http://polipundit.com/
http://jaycost.blogspot.com/

Bush has a lock on enough states that a win in Ohio and Florida means he wins the whole shebang. Ohio seems to be leaning Kerry but hasn't elected a Democrat in a statewide election since John Glenn, so I'm skeptical they are going to do it now.

Gallup showed an 8-point Bush lead in FL as of 10/24 but I suspect that sample probably has a few more Republicans in it than usual as Gallup doesn't weight its samples. Still, I think Jay Cost (above) makes a good case about why Florida won't be as close as 2000.

Finally, there is plenty of firsthand evidence that the Kerry campaign is relying a lot on the same crowd that launched Dean into both fame and obscurity and they are having many of the same issues - inexperience, inability to coordinate (since by law they aren't supposed to), conflicting messages and general bad management. To give an example, ACT (a 527 supporting Kerry) was responsible for the Get Out The Vote effort in Michigan; but they pulled out of there several weeks ago and now Michigan has gone soft and Kerry has to go back there when he should have his base solidified and be making inroads on Bush's leaner states. They've done a lot of that kind of thing and it is bound to hurt them because the Republicans are definitely fielding the "A" team.
 
Powell is probably a nice-guy; but he was a general for too long and my gut feeling is that he sees a benevolent all-powerful government as a good thing in far too many cases for us to share much political ground.
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I'm sure you're right. If we managed to pin Powell down on the issues, I bet he would be more "to the left" than most of us would be happy with. But I'm not sure we couldn't live with that on balance. As long as we had strong majorities in both houses.

(Let's assume Bush wins on Tuesday for this whole discussion.)

2008. The people who lost with Gore and lost with Kerry are about an inch from being frothing maniacs after 8 years of Bush. And there is a feeling across America that maybe it really is "time for a change." Along comes Powell.

1) He can point out that he was the dovish member of the Bush cabinet. He was the one that wanted to consult with the UN before we went in to Iraq by ourselves. (As we ended up doing.) He is very popular with many of our foreign allies. He can make a case that he's a Republican but "different than Bush and Cheney." And he could probably sell that based on the stuff I've heard about disagreements with Rumsfeld and Rice.

2) A Republican in 2008 who is "more conservative than Bush" is probably going to be in trouble. Someone that can convincingly sell themselves as "middle of the road" has a real chance. Especially if the Demcrats remain true to form and pick someone from the left wing of the party. Based on who ended up in their primaries, you would think they don't HAVE anybody but left-wingers!

3) The President becomes the spokesman and symbol of their party. If Pat Buchanan was the President, the prevailing opinion across the country would be that all the Republicans in the House and Senate were "like him." Since Buchanan would be well outside of the middle, that means most people would think the Republicans were "too far to the right." So the next election would lean toward the Democrats.

So my point is that Powell would be more likely to get elected in 2008. (Or somebody like him that is convincingly "in the middle.") And having a compassionate and articulate person like Powell for President would make the whole party look good. Republicans would be winning big majorities in both houses. We would be winning over new voters. Some black voters (and other minorities) would finally have to admit the GOP really DID do more in practice than the Democrats.

It could be the beginning of a long run for the GOP!

Gregg
 
I'm not sure that a long run for the GOP is such a good thing if they keep moving left to do it. I'd rather they held their ground and make the Dems actually try to win back the middle. Maybe after eight years of Bush the wacko wing of the Dems will be a little more tolerant of mainstream ideas.
 
Actually, I think that eight years of a somewhat/reasonably conservative administration conditions voters to a conservative government. And that would make it harder for the ultra-left to dominate the nomination process in the Democrat party. I think that's why we're seeing such a vicious divide right now. This is the ultra-left's last chance.

Bill Clinton was no conservative, but he wasn't anywhere near as liberal as Kerry. At his core, Bush is very conservative, but is "pragmatic" enough to govern a little closer to the center. Reagan was conservative, but managed to keep the people on his side even as he did things that outraged the ultra-left.

If Bush can win this, I think we'll have seen the last of the ultra-left trying to grab the White House. The Democrats in 2008 will field a more centrist candidate. And, given that no party since FDR has held the White House for more than two terms, I suspect we'll be seeing a centrist/conservative Democrat as president in 2008. IF Bush wins.
 
If Bush can win this, I think we'll have seen the last of the ultra-left trying to grab the White House.
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I agree that seems like the pragmatic thing to do. But how do they accomplish it? The primary system _tends_ to create a party candidate that is most acceptable to the extremists in the party. So much so that many "middle" candidates don't even bother to enter the process.

What _usually_ happens is the "most dedicated" members of the party start working on possible candidates the earliest. The "most dedicated" in both parties are usually the people who don't represent the middle. In the Republican Party, that's usually the religious right and the pro-life people. In the Democrats, that's usually the people who would like to see a US government that is more like Sweden or France. They recruit the candidates. They raise money amongst the groups that share their strong ideological ideas. They attend and vote in the early "straw polls."

Look at the last group of Democrats who ended up running in the primaries. Every one of them was to the left of Clinton. People point out Edwards since he is from the South but he doesn't hold up when you actually investigate his life and his political views. He would never be able to be elected as a Senator in OK, TX, or even CO. Clark was a military man so I thought there was hope there. But investigation revealed the same thing; he believed that problems in society could and should be addressed and solved by government programs.

Then the voting in the primaries starts. Do all registered Democrats and Republicans vote in the primaries? Not hardly! Only the "most engaged" and those, once again, tend to be those with the strongest ideologies. Dean was roaring through the Democrats for weeks even though his political ideas were CLEARLY not going to work in the general election. Finally the Democrats started talking about electing a candidate who "could beat Bush" and Kerry started to win. It's sad when a 20 year liberal Senator from Mass. is your "rational choice" as an electable candidate. But they could only pick from the candidates that the "party loyalists" had pre-selected for them.

Prior to all the rules changes of 1972 in the Democratic Party (under McGovern) candidates were "pre-selected" by "party bosses in smoke filled rooms." It wasn't a democratic process but a coldly rational one where the most experienced and powerful tried to pick somebody they thought could win a general election. The rules were changed so that all candidates are selected by open votes of equal weight. The leadership can no longer impose their choices.

So it is very difficult for either party to select a candidate "from the middle." The people involved (and the rules) tends to bring in candidates who hold views well into the extreme wing of the party. (And they tend to write the party platform as well.) And I don't know how they are going change that!
 
Bartholomew: "Not true... Republicans held it from 1980 to 1992. Reagan, Reagan and then Bush 41."

Doh! How could I make a mistake like that??!!

Anyway. The people who are really "for" Kerry are a minority in the Democrat party, the last bastion of the 60's counterculture. (Believe me, I know many of them). The other Kerry voters either hate Bush outright or don't agree with his policies, especially on Iraq.

If Bill and Hillary had allowed the Dem's to field a more centrist, more appealing candidate, Bush would probably be in more trouble now than he already is. Looking around the country, there are several Democrats who would have made for stronger candidates. New Mexico governor Bill Richardson springs to mind. He has DC experience, and governors usually make for good candidates.

I find it interesting that Bush isn't going to be campaigning until the very last, but rather relaxing at his ranch. Since the campaigns' internal polls are the most expensive and most extensive, this might be revealing.
 
Hey Bart, why not Kay Bailey Hutchison? She's pro-gun, although her views on abortion would be opposed by the right-to-lifers. I don't know much about her and I"ve never heard her name come-up as a presidential possiblity. She seemed way more electable to me than her counterpart (Phil Gramm) who tried to garner the nomination several years ago. I think she would appeal to many Democrats and would come across better than Hilary. She's pretty popular in Texas, no?

(krautgunner, Jeb has already stated he will not seek the nomination in '08).
 
Fugedaboutit. Neither party has any leadership material. It's all about packaging and perception and lies and empty rhetoric. We are so very screwed.
 
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I find it interesting that Bush isn't going to be campaigning until the very last, but rather relaxing at his ranch. Since the campaigns' internal polls are the most expensive and most extensive, this might be revealing.
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He made the same mistake last time with his week-end off! I am afraid he is being over optimistic once again... or that the GOP is giving up! I find the whole thing is really starting to look bad...
 
I'm not sure how pro-gun Kay Bailey Hutchinson is but I am pretty sure her pro-gun voting record ties in closely with her proximity to Texas. I'm not sure she would remain a solid vote as an executive. I also don't know if she has the pull within the Republican party to be a credible candidate but I'm skeptical there also. She did vote for the Boxer gunlock amendment this past March, so she definitely isn't hard-core on RKBA, though she is probably closer to our side than to Brady.

Alan Keyes political career is deader than an armadillo in the middle of I-20. All he was expected to do was generate some pro-Republican buzz and keep the base excited enough to turn out for the general election and he has failed in both. The margins actually opened up worse than they did when Ryan had the sex scandal story going. He will never be a national level candidate for the GOP again.
 
This is an interesting question.

Assuming Bush wins, both parties have a lot of thinking to do. I think if Iraq doesn't get nicely wrapped up in the next fours years, there will be virtually no chance of another Republican president. Assuming it does, the Republicans are going to have to conclude that what they have been doing has been working, only they will need to maintain the ever-present threat of terrorism through the next election. (I am not a crazy person, but I do spend a lot of time talking politics with Bush voters, and his stance on that is far and away number one for every single one of them) I think they are going to have to find someone as careful as Bush is about walking the fine line on the other issues though. And the Republicans won't win unless thier guy is willing to say he is pro-life. That's just the way it is. This morning on the way into town I heard the first and only commercial for the presidential election this year. Bush and Kerry have not even campaigned in SC. Why? The Religious Right. They are to the Republicans what blacks and unions are to the Democrats.
 
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