"Be careful that victories do not carry the seeds of future defeats."
- Ralph W. Sockman (1889-1970), American religious leader
Bruce Reed, over at the Washington Post, provides us with a slightly different twist on how the country's recent good news may impact the Democrats' chances of winning the White House in 2004. Most would say adversely, right? Well, Bruce begs to differ:
"Voters who still have problems they want their president to solve will resent hearing about all he has done--or worse, voters might agree and decide to give the president a gold watch, the way Britons retired Winston Churchill after he won them World War II."
Mr. Reed, who worked on Bill Clinton's re-election in 1996, bases much of his theory on something the former president used to say, "Elections are about the future, not the past." He thinks that the Bush administration is sacrificing the solution of "tomorrow's problems to gain today's headlines," and that will leave the Republicans worse off over the long haul.
He feels the new Medicare law is unpopular, that Saddam Hussein's capture will make Americans feel safer and less in need of someone like Bush to defend them, and the deficits won't allow the president to fund a second term agenda. He cites problems such as high health care costs, fewer jobs, and bigger mortgages as enhancing his party's chances.
"Democrats have better answers than Bush--or should be embarrassed if they don't--to all these questions. Of course, none of these problems will elect a Democrat until we make solving them our central mission in 2004."
Reed may have a point, but from where I sit, I don't see any of the Democratic candidates backing off their "George Bush is the devil" theme long enough to talk about issues and solutions. Perhaps after the convention, this will begin happening. I think most of the American people would view that as a refreshing change. I know I would.
2 comments:
The problem I see with the Dems is that they're too busy fighting among themselves to address those problems. Dean was trying to do so when he made his unfortunate Confederate flag remarks.
When we finally decide the Dem. nominee the questions should be: Are you better off than you were four years ago? And do you feel hopeful for the future?
The problem with liberal Democrats was summed up succintly by Dennis Miller in this TIME mag interview, "we[liberals] are not going to protect you and we want more money."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101031222-561278,00.html?cnn=yes
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