I think that Paul Waldman is probably right that the conservatives will learn approximately nothing from their drubbing in November. In fact, the logical reset will be to look to Jeb Bush to save the Republicans in 2016, but he will probably do about as well in the primaries as Jon Huntsman did this year. If Hillary Clinton runs, she will be the next president, and will almost definitely serve for two terms. At that point, the Republicans will be able to look back 36 years and realize that they won the popular vote once (in 2004) in that entire period of time. Will they blame themselves for this? It’s not likely. They will blame the media and their own candidates, but they will never entertain the idea that the American people aren’t anywhere near as crazy as they’d like to believe.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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If Hillary Clinton runs, she will be the next president, and will almost definitely serve for two terms.
What makes you so sure? After all, you probably would have said the same thing back in January of 2008.
Calvin, are you dense? Did I predict a Clinton presidency at any time during 2007 or 2008?
I’m in no way convinced Hillary could beat the up and coming stars of the party. She’s get her share of money for sure. She would begin with a decent share of the party faithful. Her name recognition is great. But she’s still the woman who voted for Iraq and the Clintons carry the stench of opportunism. Does anyone really trust her not to triangulate our heard earned advantages away? Will she fight when it’s easier to pose?
I do think the underlying point, that the nation is demographically shifting in a way that makes it difficult to imagine the Republican party, as presently constituted, from winning at the national level, makes sense.
Clinton would be hard to beat under any circumstances. Ask Obama.
But after her successful stint as Sec. of State, she won’t even have more than token opposition if she decides to run. Cuomo will bow out, and so will Biden.
I’m not the dense one. You are. My point is that everyone thought that Clinton was a shoo-in in ’08. Who, on January 1, 2008, thought that Obama would end up being the Democratic nominee? What were his odds on Intrade that day? The point being that Clinton isn’t a shoo-in even if she decides to run. Far from it.
Um. I believe that I was consistent in not only saying that Hillary should be opposed but that she could be defeated.
Check the archives.
When I say that she can’t be defeated this time around, it is based on a different set of considerations. Mainly, no one viable will challenge her this time around.
By Jan 1, 2008 I thought he’d win – that’s why I was knocking on doors in rural Iowa – and anyone paying attention knew it was a race.
I don’t know about Jan. 1, 2008, but Al Giordano laid out Obama’s path to victory back in September of 2007….
http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/48290-damn-you-barack-obama/
A lot of us thought that Obama would be the nominee before Jan 1, 2008.
I thought Obama would be the nominees, and that he’d win in the general, long before Jan 1 of 2008. That’s why I worked my butt off for Obama in 2007, donated way more money than I could afford, went to iowa before the caucuses, and volunteered in 3 other states.
I think a whole lot of us believed in Obama for a very long time while the media was still promoting Hillary as the “can’t lose” nominee.
Ha! I almost choked on my coffee when I read your comment.
Its got to be that “liberal” media and now the corrupt, running dog liberal League Of Women Voters!
(firewalled article)
Reality has a liberal bias.
Exactly.
And the Tea Party will hold their hammerlock on the House? Then either they will attain their goal of the federal government doing nothing or we will enter an age of super-Imperial Presidency with Congress becoming increasingly irrelevant. Neither is good.
The base problem is voters who recognize the GOP Presidential candidates as loons but love their local Congressman and Senators who “stop all those government giveaways.”
Unless, of course, its their government giveaway.
That’s not a giveaway that’s their right. /snark
Their root problem is that they don’t believe “E pluribus unum”.
I lived with them all my life. I envy those who live in Hawaii and California and not just for the weather.
Ah well, how much more lonely must TarHeelDem and our other colleague from South Carolina feel? My daughter wanted to join a Dean meetup in 2004 Alabama but could only find two other Democrats and she was the only white Democrat.
Southern Democrats can speak for themselves, but from a distance the electoral map looks like North Carolina has become a true swing state, and is on it’s way to leading Democratic. Georgia (along with Arizona) isn’t too far behind. Then, about a decade from now, South Carolina and Texas turn purple.
So either we’re on the verge of a “permanent Democratic majority” in which Dems regularly win 350+ electoral votes, or something changes in the makeup of the Republican party.
Then she didn’t look hard enough, or she was in LA (Lower Alabama). Plenty of progressive/liberal dems in AL. I will admit that finding them can be a trial on occasion.
Yep, we’ll become the new Roman Empire, where Congress is nothing but a useless appendage.
I, too, hope we get to watch the battle for the soul of the Republican party that will break out when/if Pres. Obama is re-elected. And I think a “real conservative” is likely to get the party’s nomination in 2016. (In part because right-wingers will feel vindicated by winning more seats in Congress in 2014 which, if you look at the history, is likely to happen.)
It’s after that election that we’ll find out what’s going to happen to the Republican party. Because then the right-wing will have had a Goldwater-like (or McGovern-like) loss. At that point, they lose their “if we’d only nominated a real conservative” argument.
And remember, with each passing year the demographics of the electorate get worse for them.
A battle for the soul of the Republican party would seem to presume a soul over which to battle. The soul of the Republican party was long ago sold to the devil’s minions, by which I mean Lee Atwater (before his conversion), Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh et. al.
A worthy point. Perhaps “battle for control of the Republican party” is a more precise way of putting it?
The GOP moneybags got a bit too smart and greedy this time around. They could have gotten a lot more bang for their bucks in the long-run had they fielded a not so-crazy sounding teabag darling for the primary and then let him sink in the general election. Then the rightwing would have owned the loss and behaved themselves for the next couple of decades by being properly excited whoever the plutocrats choose.
um, ok, seriously WTF is Romney doing? is he subconsciously done with this campaigning stuff it is just comes boiling out?
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/09/26/911051/romney-to-small-businesses-dont-be-expecting-a-h
uge-cut-in-taxes/
does this guy REALLY not understand that not everyone is blessed financially enough to be able to have 1 parent at home, even in non-single parent households!
“Romney: It’s better to have a parent at home
At NBC News’ Education Nation Summit on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said it was preferable for one parent stay home when kids are young.
The comment came during a discussion of early childhood education and preparing children for kindergarten. “It’s an advantage to have two parents, but to have one parent to stay closely connected and at home during those early years of education can be very very important,” Romney said.
Ann Romney was a stay-at-home mother to the couple’s five sons. “
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/09/25/romney-its-better-to-have-a-parent-a
t-home/
Everybody I know with kids has a job (or 2 or 3). I have no idea how a working class family can make it these days without doing that. My oldest is lucky in a way. He and his wife work opposite shifts, so one of them is almost always with the kids.
I’d say most, but not everybody. About half the people I know have stay-at-home wife (note that I didn’t say “non-working”), but then we have Union jobs that pay close to double the mean blue-collar wage. People who make significantly less MUST have two workers to survive. People who make significantly more have professional wives who WANT to work. In the happy middle we have wives who can CHOOSE between home and extra money (from a dull boring job).
I agree Hillary would be just about a lock for the nomination. In 2008 I supported Obama and strongly opposed Hillary’s candidacy – because I thought her prior health care effort would create too many barriers to getting health care passed, because I wanted someone stronger on civil liberties, because of her Iraq vote, and because I was concerned by a NYT article about confidential contributions to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments.
So now the dam is broken on health care, the third and fourth of those concerns are answered by her stellar performance as SoS, and civil liberties are apparently hostage to the state of the world and the fears of Congress – not easily alterable by changing Presidents.
I’d prefer a candidate with fewer political entanglements, but I’d support her enthusiastically as the nominee, and I think many 2008 Obama supporters would say the same. She’ll have opposition from the left, but I can’t imagine it defeating her.
However, I’m less confident than you are about Jeb Bush. He’s made sane noises recently that will hurt him in the primaries, but he’s got 2-3 years after this election is over to assure the base he’s their guy. If he really wants the presidency he’ll fall in line and do it, and in that case I could see him winning the nomination.
I can’t see him beating Hillary. 🙂
An interesting thing is happening, reason from the center is beginning to rumble. Little events that we wouldn’t have seen even a year ago; the painting over of a NY grafitti with the stamp ‘racist’, the new campaign in Congress to ‘exit’ the TPartiers, the silent Evangelicals stepping forward to condemn Ralph Reed, NunsOnABus…
Global warming is going to wring every molecule of strength from whoever is President and there isn’t a Rep on the horizon who can tax break us out of global warming.
Didn’t want her in 2008 and definitely don’t want a sixty-nine year old Hillary moving back into the WH in 2017.
What’s with all this idealization of dynasty among Democrats? Particularly when the legacy of patriarch stinks.
Shouldn’t we at least try thinking a little further out from the center of the box?