I’m Not Dead Yet…..
The famous scene from the comedy classic, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, of the old man, who actually isn't dead yet, being carried out to the dead cart comes to mind when I read this column from David Broder in the Washington Post. Broder, of course, isn't exactly what you'd call a big fan of the administration or Republicans in general. But he warns the folks that are pronouncing the GOP dead that, like the old man, there's still life in the party.
Months before the first votes are cast in the campaign of 2008, some in the media are conducting last rites for the Republicans. The rush to bury the GOP is as hasty as it is premature.
The headline atop Page 1 of Tuesday's New York Times read, "GOP Voters Voice Anxieties on Party's Fate." It sounded like a death knell for the party that has held the White House for 26 of the past 38 years. But the evidence was thin.
A New York Times-CBS News poll that included 698 self-identified Republicans found that 40 percent of them thought the Democrats were likely to win the presidency in 2008, while only 12 percent of Democrats said they believed a Republican would win. That finding is hardly a surprise. A great many Democrats I know still have trouble admitting that their candidates lost to George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. They are still mentally counting votes in Florida and Ohio that they are convinced were overlooked.
The Times, not normally solicitous of Republicans' feelings, also reported widespread concern among those it interviewed "that their party had drifted from the principles of Ronald Reagan, its most popular figure of the past 50 years."
Read the rest, he points out the obvious. It is, despite the enormous acceleration of the 2008 campaign, very, very early and there is a lot that can happen between now and then. And there still is a base of GOP voters. I know the Democrats would love to figuratively knock the old man on the head, but that might not quite work out in the long run. Lots can happen.
By superdestroyer, Thursday, 15 March , 2007 @ 6:33 am
The Republicans have no chance in any state that John Kerry won in 2004. Yet, the Republican have diminished chances in New Mexico, Iowa, Ohio, and even Virginia.
Also, the demographic changes in this United States give the Democrats another huge advantage.
By cfaller96, Thursday, 15 March , 2007 @ 9:48 am
gaius said:
Broder, of course, isn’t exactly what you’d call a big fan of the administration or Republicans in general
That’s just about one of the most laughably stupid comments I’ve ever heard you make, Gaius. Broder loves Republicans and loves this President. Just a month ago he claimed there would be a “Bush bounce,” which I think even you posted about (but I could be wrong about that). Yeah, sure Davey, how’s that “bounce” coming along?
Gaius, did you bother to read the NYT piece that Broder was harrumphing so loudly about? Because the same point Broder made (’too early to write off GOP’) was also made several times in the NYT piece that he was responding to.
So, if he essentially agrees with the NYT piece he screeched about, what was the point of his piece exactly? And what is the point of you highlighting his piece exactly? Laughably stupid, all of it.
By syn, Thursday, 15 March , 2007 @ 10:37 am
The fact that the Democrats jumped the gun into running way too early to mean anything important signifies to me that the Democrat Party is in panic mode since they are well aware that Giuliani is still the most popular frontrunner despite the fact he really hasn’t begun to campaign. Clinton won’t win because like the Bush Name the Clinton Name is overdone, Obama won’t win because black Dem voters don’t think he’s black enough for their identity and his voting record is outright socialism, The Breck Girl has no spine and made the big mistake of hooking up with the nutroots, The Goracle is way too easy to ridicule to take seriously. As far as presidential candidates are concerned, the Dems really don’t have much to offer.
In the end, after two years of early campaigning I cannot help but think that even Democrat voters will have grown tired of current crop of Dem candidates.
By Gaius, Thursday, 15 March , 2007 @ 12:31 pm
cfaller, every time I have let you comment here, if I let you go long enough, you’ll step over the line - every, single time. At least you’re predictable.
And banned, yet again.
By Quilly Mammoth, Thursday, 15 March , 2007 @ 12:34 pm
cfaller96
Do you have a scrip for that stuff you’re smoking?
Broder is the quintisential apolitical centerist. On August 3, 2006 he wrote that “the hope for victory is gone†about the Iraq War which hardly makes him a party hack.
O’Dub called him the “insiders insider” because he works hard not to offend anyone. But he is noticeably cool to extremists in both parties. Have you read anything he’s written about the Neo-Cons? But then to people like you if someone isn’t actually shouting for Dubya’s head they are BusHiterlian Stormtroopers of the Rovian sort.