Democrats: Enjoy the Moment

With less than a year to Election Day 2008, many of us are edgily counting down the days to the Democratic sweep. Polling tells us that in a general election, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards would win North Carolina! Kentucky! Virginia! And even Alabama and Oklahoma with the right mix of candidates!

History, as always, dampens our enthusiasm, and in this case more so than normally. Not so long ago, who thought George W. Bush had a chance against Al Gore? I know it didn't occur to me at all. In fact, I COMPLETELY understood the Nader nuts because Gore was going to win anyway and we needed to make a statement about the environment (!), civil rights, and capitalism generally.

This was a difficult and not particularly enlightening experience. But one that painfully reminded us that the Democratic Party has not been the party of the majority of this country for a long time, if ever, at least among those who can and do vote.

Since the founding of the Republican Party in the 1850s, only three Democrats have won more than 50% of the presidential vote, as well as the electoral college. And this has only happened on the heels of the Great Depression, World War II, the Kennedy assassination and Watergate.

Of course, it is possible to fall short of an absolute majority of the popular vote, even lose it, and still become president, as Bush so aptly illustrated in 2000. And by and large the Democratic and Republican parties of several decades, let alone a century ago, have evolved into very different creatures (thankfully for the former).

But what does it tell us that Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton could not get half the country (plus one) to vote for them? And that at the same time, both Bushes and Richard Nixon, among the most recently victorious Republicans, achieved a sometimes solid absolute majority of the popular vote?

Democrats have struggled for years to figure this out. The mot du jour is, once again, electability. This may have been understandable after some of the more notorious debacles of the 1970s and 1980s in which primary voters went with their heart (George McGovern, Walter Mondale). But recent history has not been kind to the lucid crowd. After all, John Kerry was seen as the rational, experienced, safe choice of primary Democratic voters in 2004; in truth, had they picked Al Sharpton, they would have ended with the same thing: a loss. In 2000, Gore was the most risk-averse choice Democrats had made in decades and yet he too went down to defeat.

Electability is a concept that makes many progressive voters uncomfortable, as it should. Not only because it usually means excruciating political compromise, but, as evidenced by Kerry and Gore, it's so often for nothing. Even the most eager poll followers cannot predict 6 to 10 months before a general election (when most primaries take place) who is likely to fare best come November. There are too many unknowns, starting with the Republican nominee. Many times, Democrats have looked forward to facing a sure loser, not unlike the younger Bush, only to be bitterly disappointed. Right now, Mitt Romney looks like a delectable general election opponent: polls show him losing every single state surveyed against pretty much any leading Democrat. But a closer look is sobering: the scary flip-flopping robot has come from far behind to lead in every early Republican primary state. Would you rather face him, or lazybones Fred Thompson?

So, yes, we know that Hillary Clinton would most likely fare better against any Republican nominee than, say, Dennis Kucinich, but do we really know whether she'd be stronger than four or five of the other Democratic primary contestants? No, and we shouldn't care. With such an unusually attractive field, Democrats should enjoy the moment, vote with their hearts and, for once, feel secure in their choice. Even if Clinton is the nominee.

Comments

[Dantheman99]

I no longer vote for the lesser of two evils. I now vote for candidates I believe in. I sleep better at night knowing I didn't vote out of fear for the lesser of evils. We shouldn't have to vote for evil at all.

Kucinich is a force for good. Clinton/Edwards/Obama are all pretty much the same. Their policy differences really aren't all that major.

Unlike Clinton, Kucinich would withdraw the troops from Iraq, seek the medicare-for-all approach to Health Care and supports equality for gays/lesbians.

That alone makes him worthy in my book.

If one wants to vote for Kucinich because of what he believes in, but doesn't believe he can win the nomination, and is perfectly happy voting for Clinton or Obama or Edwards in the general election now, then vote for Kucinich in the primary/caucuses. The larger his vote total, the more delegates he has, the more the party structure and the platform can be reshaped on a hopeful, progressive line.

[LeeFromVA]

Cheer up Dems, there is still Hope. Obama is an all around great guy who will appeal to a certain percentage of Republicans. He has very low negative numbers. Wake up and smell the coffee, you have a great candidate right there in front of you and if you don't wise up you'll end up with Hillary or Rudy. Seriously, take 5 minutes out of your day and go to his website and listen to what he has to say. I think you'll be impressed. You have an opportunity to have a candidate in the general election that is not just the lesser of evils, but somebody we can all happily get behind.

[research]

Four Years Ago, Gephardt and Dean Were Way Ahead in polls in Iowa. So the polls today are probably not who we will elect! The polls will change!

Thus, KUCINICH #1 IN THE DFA POLL democracyforamerica.com/pulsepoll?c=6ll?c=6

However you vote when you actually "pull the lever" should include who you think can win. That's just reality. But till then, don't even take polls that ask no-win questions like: right now, who do you think will win?" Because till the moment you vote, that's irrelevant. Answer ONLY who you WANT to win till the election.

[Malarcus]

"With less than a year to Election Day 2008, many of us are edgily counting down the days to the Democratic sweep."

Yes, I did read the enitre article to see if you were being facetious. You weren't. At this stage, with dem Dems rolling over, capitulating and generally reclining back and wrongfully thinking that the rope they've given Dubya and the Repubs is intended for suicide, it is getting likelier that they will soon be sweating over being able to hold their alleged majorities in Congress, let alone get to be President, as well. In fact, their performance since last November has been equally as horrendous as that alleged campaign John Kerry conducted three years ago. Dem Dems have not acquitted themselves very well, and if they believe there will be no repercussions down the road- I'm looking at you Feinstein and Schumer- they've got another think coming.

[slc20]

Unfortunately people aren't voting for Hillary because of "their hearts" they are voting for her because they have been misguided into thinking she can win the general.

Every single poll shows a tighter race between Hillary and the republican nominee. Edwards or Obama beat the republican candidate by wider margins, but the Hillary machine has effectively brainwashed dumb democrats that she's the "most electable"... which i guess is why dems keep losing the whitehouse. They aren't practical enough to actually nominate a good general elction candidate.

Hillary will lose, and i will spend another election day disappointed and disgusted by the dems' idiocy.

Sad.

[CriminallySane]

Posted more as a launch point for discussion than anything else:

1) Republicans tend to work from more simplistic, and thus more easily communicated, ideological starting points.

2) Democrats, in addition to having less easily communicated ideas (mostly due to their complexity), tend as a rule not to be as good at communicating them.

3) American voters are a poorly educated, easily distracted lot, and bring a raft of prejudices to the voting booth with them - when they bother to vote at all. Those prejudices are most easily played upon by the simplistic ideas Republicans espouse, serving as appeals to the baser aspects of human nature.

[Oldchef]

It'll probably be either Clinton or Obama, since that's where the big money is, but Edwards has the bigger heart. EDWARDS/DODD '08!

[hopeless277]

Democrat, Republican, the only difference is that Democrats roll over faster that Republicans. Oh, and they beg too! If Shummer is a Democrat, and still willing to give Bush a blank check on virtually everything and then some, I'll vote for Republicans. At least then I won't be so crushed when they destroy democracy in America. They actually say that's what they want to do. Dems, on the other hand, are much more insidious. They pretend they want democracy and then enable the preznit to supress it. Screw the Dems. Every last lilly livered cowardly one of 'em.