When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?
— John Maynard Keynes
When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?
— John Maynard Keynes
smarties — Thursday, 12 April 2007
by Donald W. Taylor II
Matthew Yglesias has a post in which he muses a little bit on "the GOP's inability to recognize the electoral fiasco staring them in the face" ("The Collapse," 11 April 2007). But then a few posts later has this handy summary of head-to-head 2008 presidential candidate matchups from the new Los Angeles Times / Bloomberg Poll ("New Names Polls," 12 April 2007):
Giuliani 48, Clinton 42
McCain 42, Clinton 45
Romney 37, Clinton 44
Giuliani 42, Obama 46
McCain 40, Obama 48
Romney 31, Obama 50
Giuliani 45, Edwards 44
McCain 40, Edwards 44
Romney 30, Edwards 50
How people think they will vote in an election over a year away is a pretty poor predictor of how they actually will vote in the real thing, but I would say this looks like anything but a collapse to me.
People may be pissed off about the current state of affairs, but they don't impact that general sense in a more concrete way when considering presidential candidates. They don't strongly associate the current crop of Republicans with the Bush administration — and why should they? None of them really are. Neither do they think to highly of any of the Democrats, that is, associate them with any solution to the malaise. For my part, neither do I.
One of the things that should change between now and election time is that people should develop more concrete associations. Giuliani, McCain and Romney will be more closely associated with Iraq and Democrats the opposite. But the Democrats do have a stunning capacity to dissemble, mince words and muddy the water when the time to draw clear distinctions comes. Think Hillary Clinton on Iraq or all the talking out of both sides of the mouth that we can expect on healthcare.
Democrats are sitting awful pretty right now, like 2008 will be an effortless saunter to the White House. I think 2008 is going to be a bloodbath. The general election will be ugly enough, but the Democrat who manages to be the last one standing at the end of the primaries is hardly going to be a commanding national figure. The Democrats will be lucky if they win the presidency at all and whoever does win will emerge so tainted by the struggle as to enter office with little dignity or support. I suspect that the United States is going to amble into the second phase of the war on terror quite nearly as compromised as it has become in the first phase. Unless one party captures it all, in which case all will be forgiven as the party in power seeks to make something of its victory.
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Donald W. Taylor II Washington, D.C. United States of America taylordw@goodleaf.net |