Congratulations, Democrats. You’ve got the pilot, the co-pilot, a majority of the passengers and, with Arlen Specter, 60% of the stewardesses on Flight 2009-2010. Don’t fly it like Air Force One on a postcard mission.
Democrats, being Democrats, don’t usually think in such small time frames. Barack Obama promised to wean America off foreign oil in the next 10 years, or midway through his third term. But James Carville has raised him by a factor of four, suggesting Obamaism is in place until 2049 in a curious book entitled “40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation.” “THE MYTH OF REPUBLICAN COMPETENCE HAS BEEN SHATTERED. . .” screams the back cover. “And I guarantee the Democrats will be the dominant party for the next forty years!” Wanna bet?
Like many in his age bracket, the Agin’ Cajun, who is having trouble deciding whether this year he turns 60 (according to the prepublication galleys made available to critics) or 65 (according to the finished book), needs regular eye checkups. For myopia.
Forty years isn’t a long time in politics. A week is a long time in politics. Where was gay marriage in the debate 40 years ago? Where is the draft today?
Republicans have “the lowest political brand in the history of polling,” Carville says. In history? I guess they don’t have pollsters in Russia and Germany.
A week from now, Obama’s decision not to close the border with Mexico might seem like an epic pander to political correctness over medical correctness. A few pictures of dead children on the news, and people can get angry. Epidemiologists are already deriding Obama’s ludicrous claim, at a time when only a handful of cases have been reported in the US, that to seal the border would be like locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen. Actually, it would be more like making people stay home if they feel sick.
Carville is of the view that history moves in 40-year waves, with 1968 to 2008 being a Republican period and a longterm leftward shift just getting rolling. But as my 401(k) taught me, past performance is no guarantee of future results.
There wasn’t a 40-year Republican reign. Republicans were reeling as badly in 1976 as they are today. The brand was in ruins, its most prominent proponent was a crook, and the country was ready to turn the page. It awarded Dems the presidency, the House and 61 Senate seats. What brought the elephants roaring back on the field was that the Democrats acted like asses.
Obama’s remarks on flu policy at the enchanted press conference may not matter. Iraq and Afghanistan may flare up or not. The crises on Wall Street and Detroit may be wrapping up, or they may be just beginning. These are the known unknowns. Who knows what unknown unknowns are coming?
The American voter’s party preference is no more fixed than a drunk frat boy’s taste for girls majoring in English vs. pre-med. Whoever is willing to make him smile wins his undying loyalty for the rest of the evening. The voters aren’t analyzing policy against their Hayek or their Marx-Engels Reader because they slept through those classes.
On Sept. 10, says Gallup, John McCain was leading Barack Obama by four points. On Sept. 14, Lehman Brothers blew up. (Gallup finally predicted McCain would lose by 11, though he lost by only seven).
When Carville is making a coherent point, which occurs rarely (Carville, p. 154: “You’re thinking, if you’re still with me here, what are you talking about, James?”) he says that demographics are destiny. “In the 1950s, about four in five voters were married white Christians. Now only two in five voters are married, white and Christian.” If the latter is true today, it was pretty much true in 2004. It was pretty much true in early September. Remember September? Seems like a really long time ago, doesn’t it?