Ah, yes, follow the money:
More than a third of the top fundraisers who helped elect George W. Bush president remain on the sidelines in 2008, contributing to a gaping financial disparity between the GOP candidates and their Democratic counterparts.
Scores of Bush Pioneers and Rangers are not working for any Republican candidate, citing discontent with the war in Iraq, anger at the performance of Republicans in Congress and a general lack of enthusiasm. More than two dozen have actually made contributions to Democrats.
Ordinarily I would never say something like this, but I think the presidential race is over. Whoever wins the Democratic Party’s nomination will be the next president of the United States. Progressives might find a hero in Sen. Chris Dodd, if they want to pour their energy into the presidential race, but they would be better served to focus on local and state-wide races. Even though we are probably going to have a cautious, centrist, interventionist president, we are actually a nascent movement that represents the future of the Democratic Party. Politicians that have come of age during the Bush era are fundamentally different kinds of politicians from those whose beliefs were forged in earlier eras. We need lots of new blood. We need people like Jon Tester, who said he didn’t want to weaken the Patriot Act, but to repeal it.
The older generations have an ingrained belief in the superiority of conservative ideas to appeal to the electorate. Their instincts are defensiveness and moderation…leading to capitulation and weakness. The new generation understands the following:
“The Republican brand is not selling very well,” said Christine Todd Whitman, a former New Jersey governor, Bush Cabinet member and 2004 Ranger. “There are a lot of frustrated people. They are not seeing anybody who has sent them over the top.”
Now is not the time for defensiveness. It is the time to acknowledge that progressive ideas are in vogue, and to pursue them without apology and without fear.
None of our presidential candidates are, or will do that. Focus elsewhere. Focus on the next generation.
I know this is off topic, but the thought struck me while watching Bush’s press conference, that it’s been almost seven years and I still can’t get over the fact that that arrogant, clueless buffoon is the leader of the free world.
I still can’t believe that people want the guy that lost to him to run again.
I think a large part of the reason for that is exactly because Bush has been such a disaster. There is a strong sense of longing for what could have been instead.
My reaction is the opposite. Why would you pick the one guy in the universe who could manage to lose to Bush?
I can see both sides, which is why I don’t really have strong feelings about Gore running either way. I just wish he’d hurry up and decide so we can get to the matter at hand.
Obviously there are other people who would have lost to Bush in 2000. Hell, look at 2004. And that was after a significant number of people became aware of how amazingly bad Bush is at being President.
The amount of character assassination, voting shenanigans, and right wing propaganda put any Democrat in the hole right out of the gate. Who do you think could have beaten Bush in 2000?
I’m hard-pressed to think of anyone that could have lost to Bush in 2000. Only someone afraid of Clinton’s record could possibly lose.
I’m not convinced it’s as open and shut as you’re making it, but that was before I was plugged into national politics.
I remember feeling very ambivalent about both Bush and Gore then, but I’m not sure if that supports your argument or mine. Hindsight tells me it supports yours but it’s hard to go back and imagine what I would have thought had someone else been the nominee.
I disagree. I don’t think that Gore was afraid of Clinton’s record at all. I think Gore was afraid of Clinton’s baggage, and he became convinced (wrongly, I feel) that Clinton’s record didn’t offset Clinton’s baggage enough to be able to run on it.
On top of that, the Republicans had spent 8 long years in the wilderness and their special interests were all itching to compromise on a candidate to WIN – they were ready to do whatever it took to get the presidency. The Dems, OTOH, were busily tearing down their candidates for not being “pure” enough, and the hard-line liberal side of the Dem Party (small as it is) was working heavily to discourage liberals with talk of how there wasn’t a “dime’s bit of difference” between either candidate.
Now, Gore’s lapse in judgement was enough to lose him the election – I’m not absolving him of that by any means – but I think there are a LOT of Dems who would have lost to Bush given the level of poison the GOPers had spread around Clinton (that Clinton ably assisted them in spreading to some degree), the general agitation of the Republican coalition, and the general malaise of the Democratic coalition. Gore wasn’t unique in that situation. Hell, Kerry in 2004 lost to Bush too and he didn’t even have the Clinton baggage to worry about (and I suspect that he also would have lost to Bush in 2000, given the chance).
I don’t think there a snowball’s chance in hell that Gore will run. With the savaging that Gore received for years, not from the right wingers, but the mainstream media, he is not going to step back in that shithole.
As long as we have good “liberals” in the mainstream press like Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, Johnathon Chait, Howie Kurtz, Joe Klein and all their ilk willing to savage Democrats, and Gore in particular, for mindless, asinine shit like sighs and clothes and lies cut out of whole cloth like the “invention of the internet” myth, we will keep getting buffoons like George Bush in the Oval Office.
Our “liberal media” pundits were a major driving force in putting George Bush in office and sending Al Gore back to Tennessee. Why would he want to step up the plate again? With friendly voices like those, who needs enemies?
I think there is only a snowball’s chance in hell that he runs.
But I think that having everyone obsessing over his decision like this is exactly the over-analysis of mindless, asinine shit that you speak of. Just another facet of our celebrity politics.
The foundational principles of our republic have been so assaulted and shaken on all levels that it is imperative we begin to try and regain some semblance of what our country was once admired for the world over. That is going to take what is virtually a complete rehabilitation and regeneration of the government designed by the Founding Fathers. We have strayed so far from the intended structure that it will take years to get back to where we were prior to 2000.
I think it is funny that people say John Edwards is “out” of the running because of how much he has raised…but he has raised more than any Republican!!!
Skewed. Seriously, skewed.