Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

New Year’s Greetings: Predictions?

A Happy New Year to all my friends at noleftturns, and a miserable one to all our enemies. Evidently there is an Evan Bayh for Veep boomlet, but he may not be pro-abortion enough for the feminists. Can he deliver normally reliable Republican Indiana for the Dems?

I think Gephardt would be more dangerous for Bush, leading the ticket or #2. And I think 52% seems too low a Bush margin, if Dean gets the nomination. A Dean-Clark ticket might flame out or, with the approriate set of circumstances, prove successful.

I proposed a winning Dean strategy a couple weeks ago on The Remedy at claremont.org, though this could be the year of the Democratic Party crack-up. A presidential nominee has a lot of inducements to offer-- Secretary of State Clark, Secretary of Defense Lieberman (depending on the Connecticut situation), Attorney General Edwards, etc.

Steve Hayward gave some good arguments for Dean’s unstoppability a few weeks ago, but he still has to win an election outside of Vermont. A pile of money he has, but he shoots his mouth off a lot too.

Dean’s puny opponents may not offer a satisfactory alternative, but the accumulation of body blows they deliver against him may make him incapable of winning a majority of delegates. Of course, that’s not supposed to happen these days, but the Democrats designed the primary system to prevent such a result, so who knows what will actually happen. A brokered convention and united Democrat ticket?

Discussions - 10 Comments

You guys are all forgetting that you always have to automatically deduct 10 percentage points from Bush, due to his remarkable ability for saying something stupid at the most critical of times. My guess is that he’ll do or say something REALLY dumb come the last week of October. If he isn’t behind in the polls by then, that’ll be the fix.

Actually, I don’t think that Bush loses any support when he speaks. Really, quite the opposite. I tend to think of his stirring words at Ground Zero or the State of the Union a few years back in which he could barely get a word in edge-wise during the standing ovations. Likewise, I think the American people are used to all Republicans being labeled as stupid as all Democrats as highly-intelligent and bookish. One of the things that the NY Times and the liberal bunch don’t get about Bush, Rumsfield, et al., is that they believe in truth, right and wrong, good and evil, and speak plainly about them - the liberal bunch are dumbfounded because to them the world is always "complex." Finally, when Dean defends gay marriage and tax increases and expresses opposition to a highly successful war, we will see who makes the dumb comments that causes him to drop in the poll. Oh, what a minute, Dean already did that when he came out with his "Jesus strategy." Oh, how I pray that Dean wins the nomination so the Democrats can dig another McGovern grave and ruin the party for a while with the radical whack-a-do’s!

Tony, Bush’s problem is that for every "ground zero" speech, there are 10 instances where he says or does something stupid.

I don’t see Gephardt winning the Dem nomination, and he would only be dangerous as the #2 man if the election were looking extremely close, and suddenly swing-state Missouri were in play. With Dean at the top of the ticket, I don’t really see enough swing states in play for Missouri to matter.

Starbuck: 10 percent, 10 instances, you seem fixated on the number 10, and on Bush’s "stupidity." The number of stupid statements coming out of the President’s mouth over 2003 can’t even compare to those from Dean in the last month. Given Bush’s impressive legislative record, the perception of Dems being weak on national security, a possibly booming economy, and Dean’s penchant for saying stupid things himself, I would say it’s the Dem nominee who begins the race behind by 10 points.

A possibly booming economy???? Thanks for the laugh, twit!

Ken: I agree completely that Gephardt would be the most formidable challenger to Bush. And he is the likly pick in any "brokered convention" scenario; in many ways he is the most deservin Democrat in the field. Trouble is, the party bosses of old are long gone; there are no "brokers" any more. Although it is theoretically possible that if the primaries were split among four or five candidates no one would have a majority of delegates, in practice this is almost impossible.

P.S. Good to see the ever-cheerful "starbuck" back in the conversation.

Don’t worry Stevie... I’ll be around to torment you guys right up until you lose the election in November!

I’m just still waiting for some actual proof that Bush is so stupid. I will concede that he makes the usual gaffes that all public speakers make occasionally and that he is "plain-spoken" but fail to see that the substance of what he says is "stupid." I guess I’ll just have to "check the archives" like I did in vain for a well-reasoned position on Saddam sans war. Any evidence? Also, he’s caught Saddam, has an economy that’s growing 8% right now, and has passed with Congress an education bill and a Medicare bill - I mean, what exactly are the Democrats going to run on? Any centrist position that would be popular is going to look a helluva lot like Mr. Bush. More of Clinton’s "me-tooism" or
will McGovern’s (oops, I mean Dean) strategy work this time?

I’m just still waiting for some actual proof that Bush is so stupid.

Read a newspaper lately?

Thanks all-- I must admit I don’t regularly watch tv, so I have a limited idea of what perceptions of reality are being presented to most of the public on politics. I do try to watch Jay Leno’s monologue, but for laughs, not for instruction about public opinion. Am I making a big mistake?

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