As we Dems still mull over November’s ignominy, Newsweek releases the details of an 11/9 interview with John Kerry in order to flog their upcoming election book. “He never quite came out and said it, but Kerry sounded very much like a man who was running for president again…Some of Kerry’s followers are already plotting how Kerry can defeat Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses in 2008.” Hmmm…I really think we need a lot more intraparty soul-searching before we pin our 2008 hopes on those two candidates…at this point, that sounds like a recipe for disaster.
2 thoughts on “Days of Future Past?”
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agreed. The more Dems talk about Hillary the more the Republicans smile and drool.
A couple of things the Democrats should keep in mind when discussing 2008:
1. It’s virtually impossible for a US Senator to get elected President. The American people do not trust the federal government or the people in the beltway, and they especially do not trust or like US Senators, of either party. There’s only been 2 elected President in US history, Harding and Kennedy. A ticket with two senators on it (Kerry-Edwards, for example) is guaranteed to lose, no ifs, ands or buts about it.
What Americans strongly prefer is state governors, preferably those who have never been part of the federal government. At least 20 of them have gotten elected Prez. There are a lot of differences between Carter, Reagan, Clinton and George W., but what they all have in common is that they were state governors who never held a federal office. (Howard Dean fits this profile.)
2. The power in this country has moved decisively and permanently west of the Mississippi. Seven out of seven of the last presidential elections have been won by someone from west of the Mississippi, and ten out of the last eleven. I know the so-called experts in NY and DC don’t want to face up to this, but there it is. The pundits keep harping on the south, but it’s the west that counts.
Especially the west coast, where all of the action, money and power is now. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, you name it, the companies and the people that are driving America now are out west. The Republicans at least realize this. Note how successful they’ve been with candidates from Texas and California.
One thing the Democratic leadership should consider doing is moving its headquarters out west, St. Louis or LA or something like that. Out of the beltway at any costs. Otherwise they’ll just fade away into irrelevancy, if they’re not there already.