Kvetch
The guy is defeatable. Dubya, I mean. His poll numbers are dropping, he's caught in a Catch-22 situation re: Iraq, and he's betting the ranch on an economic recovery, which may turn out to be a jobless economic recovery. He hasn't built a strong rapport with voters, most likely because he's essentially like his dad -- comfortable with his own circle, distrustful of people outside, and harboring a patrician's contempt for the hoi polloi. His approach to governing is based on three basic assumptions: 1) I know what's I'm going to do 2) you don't, and 3) lucky for me, you're a sucker.
What's frustrating is that he's so not guaranteed to win, and if he does, it may well be because Democrats blew it. And it's looking like that could happen. Even worse, the blunders are familiar, well-tested ones -- like these, for instance:
Too much stridency. I read a terrific interview with Mike Nichols a couple of years ago, in which he discussed anger as the basis for creativity. Anger's your best weapon if you know how to channel it, he said (or something like that, more eloquent than my paraphrase). Problem is, the anger's not being channeled. It's full-frontal, blustering anger -- a liability, because it can come across as a signal of desperation, of losing one's cool. It fosters the impression that the other guy must be doing something right, since he's generating so much rage among his opponents.
It was mighty satisfying, watching the Republicans bluster and flail at the height of the Clinton era.
Center-left split. Divide and conquer. I blame the DLC. Deliberately setting out to alienate the party's idealists and true believers is moronic. The DLC's big on past precedents, so have they forgotten the Nader phenom? I don't recall hearing about any memos from Karl trashing the Christian right or suggesting that, just maybe, intolerance on social issues might be a liability for the GOP.
Campaigning on losing issues. National security's to 2004 what crime was in 1988. We're going to get Willie-Hortonized. Slick ads:
(Voice-over). Candidate X opposed taking vigorous action against evil people who seek to harm our country! (Grainy photos of Saddam Hussein and his sons Uday and Qusay float by, followed by a clip of the Democratic nominee criticizing the war.) Candidate X would not do what it takes to defend the people of America! (Cut to megaphone-toting activist). Who is Candidate X more concerned about...tyrants and terrorists, or YOUR CHILDREN? (Cut to worried-looking family).
Tax cut repeal? Come on. Have Democrats ever won on the tax issue? The one time it helped us, it was because Shrub Sr. broke a promise and raised taxes.
Too much focus on "get Bush." Bush is the worst president in the history of the United States, this is the most catastrophic time humanity has ever faced. Worse than Nixon? Warren Harding? Are things now more dangerous than, say, during the Cuban missile crisis? It's like a monster story in which the monster grows more powerful the more you attack it. Bush is a moderately charismatic manipulator, a Bible salesman with a collection of stolen wooden legs. But casting him as Evil Incarnate causes his obvious shortcomings to get lost in the hyperbole.
It's what happened with Reagan. He too became this supersized bogeyman, the personification of everything wrong with the country. The 1984 Democratic campaign turned into a desperate, rhetorically overinflated quest to cast out the demon. But the demon won handily. The same thing could happen again.
Finally and most importantly,
No candidate. For me, the most telling paragraph in Joan Walsh's recent Salon piece was this one:
"The DLC may ultimately be right that the candidates on the party's left, most notably Internet darling Howard Dean, are ultimately unelectable in a national race. John Judis is one of the smartest political thinkers in the country, so when he says the numbers don't add up for a Dean candidacy, I take that very seriously. But as Garance Franke-Ruta argues, the numbers aren't adding up for DLC darlings Joe Lieberman and John Edwards, either. I think Lieberman has about as much chance of getting elected president as Dennis Kucinich does, frankly. Neither of them can pull together a large enough coalition of Democrats to win the nomination, let alone the election."
That leaves Kerry. But he's front-runner by default, neither pragmatic enough for the wonks nor inspiring enough for the true believers. He's not been able to win the hearts of Democrats, let alone independents and the occasional moderate Republican.
Maybe that will change. I sure hope so.
1:18:35 PM 
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