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Dems Stuck on Yesterday (Mark Steyn)
The Chicago Suntimes ^ | November 10, 2002 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 11/10/2002 12:28:27 PM PST by fatguy

Mustn't gloat, mustn't gloat. Instead, we must try and look sober and reflective (think Winona as the verdict's read out) and then step smartly to the side and let the Democrats tear themselves apart.

I'm reluctant to intrude on family grief, especially as the Dems are doing such a sterling job all by themselves. But, when big shot Democrats look at Tusday's results and instantly announce the reason they flopped out was because they weren't left-wing enough, I'm inclined to think I've died and gone to Republican heaven. Hey, you liberals: We right-wing guys are supposed to be the Stupid Party, remember?

So, when Democrat chums tell me they'd have done better if they'd openly opposed the war and called for repeal of the tax cut, I try to nod in agreement without openly guffawing and spraying the decaf hazelnut latte all over their shirt fronts. "Oh, absolutely," I say. "If only you'd been more anti-war and pro-tax, those New Hampshire, North Carolina and Texas Senate seats would now be yours."

As to whom Democrats should turn to for a top-notch presidential candidate with a fresh face, I say you can't do better than Jim Jeffords, the celebrated Vermont Dairy Queen with the soft-serve principles. Alas even after Tuesday, we conservatives are unlikely to get that lucky. So, on the basis that there are Democrats genuinely interested in addressing what went wrong this week, here is one big thought, from the words of your own William Jefferson Clinton: It's time to move on.

By "moving on," I'm thinking of fellows like Al Gore. You can pretty much correlate the Democrats' worst results on Tuesday with Al's travel schedule during the campaign. Also Bill Clinton's, come to that. The polls had Bill McBride holding his own against Florida Gov. Jeb Bush until Bill and Al showed up to lend a hand. The same in Maryland, where Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was still the favorite until Al and Bill breezed into town to stump for her. And everywhere Al went he had a consistent message: This election isn't about the war or the economy, it's about me and "the disputed Florida vote two years ago." "Are you over it?" he roared at the crowds. "No!" they roared back.

Earth to Al: The rest of us are over it.

This is the Democrats' real defect. "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow," sang Fleetwood Mac in Bill Clinto's '92 campaign. Ten years on, the Dems can't stop thinking about yesterday. For Al Gore, it's always Florida 2000 and his chads are dangling. For the National Organization for Women, it's always 1973 and Roe vs. Wade. For Jesse Jackson, it's always 1963 and Selma, Alabam'. Come election time, the Democrats sound like an oldies station with only three records.

Even in crude terms of "shoring up their base," the Dems feel clapped out: When Harry Belafonte has nothing to say about America's secretary of state and national security adviser other than that massa's been roun' the cottonfields and picked out a couple new house slaves, he's cranking out a tired refrain even older that his last hit. When elderly feminists run around warning "women" that their right to an abortion is a stake in this election, it's not just that it's untrue, it's that it's so lame and frankly sounds just plain loopy when North Korea has nukes and there's a Homeland Security bill ot pass. The National Organization for Women endorsed 18 candidates in this election: 15 lost.

We live in iteresting times, as the old Chinese curse has it, and the Dems have nothing interesting to say. In the midst of a great historical drama, they're still doing vaudevillian knockabout. On all the important issues, the Dems were profoundly unserious. And their complaint that the president's selfish obsession with national security, foreign policy and other trivialities was crowding out "the real issues" is a good example: Whatever the merits or otherwise of a "prescription drug plan for seniors," a great national party has to be more than a pharmacist-in-chief. The obsession with pill dispensing sounded weird in 2000, and just plain inadequate now. Late in the eveing, as the band at Missouri campaign HQ attempted to rouse the despondent crowd with Steve Allen's great song "This could Be the Start of Something Big," you couldn't help feeling that the Dems face the opposite problem: This could be the end of something small.

Whether the Democrats and their media cheerleaders understand this is doubtful. On the front page of Wednesday's New York Times, veteran Times bore R.W. ("Johnny") Apple Jr. turned in a masterpiece of patrician ennui in which the unprecendednted Republican achievements, from New Hampshire to Hawaii, were passed off as "lifeless" and "cheerless" and evidence of the public's "disenchantment and curious disconnection from the political system." I'd say they were evidence of the Times' discenchantment and curious disconnection from reality: Apple's "analysis" was almost as hilarious as his predictions of an almost Vietnam-style quagmire in Afghanistan a week before Kabul fell. But surely even a New York Times grandee should be able to make a reasonable stab at getting something right after it's happened.

As for the comforting talk of a nation still divided 50/50, UPI's Steve Sailer points out the nationwide spresd in the House races: Republicans 53.4 percent, Democrats 46.6 percent. That 6.8 percent edge could do a lot of damage. Sailer didn't factor in third-party votes, which also make for interesting reading: The Dems' net gain in the gubernatorial races was due to four states -- Alabama, Oklahoma, Oregon, Wisconsin -- where anti-tax Libertarian candidates siphoned off enough votes from the GOP to deliver the state to the Democrat. When a Dem runs on an explicit high-tax platform -- as the gubernatorial candidate did in New Hampshire, with her proposal to introduce an income tax -- voters abandon the Libertarians and come home to the Republicans. The proportion of voters philosophically antithetic to, say, a Nancy Pelosi Democratic Party is a notch or two higher than 53.4.

Meanwhile, the good news is there's a new star on the Democratic team: Jennifer Granholm, the telegenic new governor of Michigan. The bad news is she was born in British Columbia and thus ineligible to run for president.

Oh, well. Hillary's still available.


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: marksteynlist; steyn
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To: scholar; Bullish
Ping
41 posted on 11/10/2002 4:20:07 PM PST by knighthawk
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To: fatguy
But, when big shot Democrats look at Tusday's results and instantly announce the reason they flopped out was because they weren't left-wing enough

Michael Savage made an interesting comment the other day (I know some of you don't agree with his approach to problems, but you at least have to admit, the guy has an amazing intellect and ability to connect the dots). Savage commented that with the recent U.N. vote even Syria is now on the side of America. That means the "leftist" are so far left that they are "beyond" the left of Syria. How true that is. Let the Democrats keep going left. They're already bordering insanity.

42 posted on 11/10/2002 4:26:48 PM PST by YoungKentuckyConservative
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To: fatguy
Jim Jeffords, the celebrated Vermont Dairy Queen with the soft-serve principles.

LOL!

43 posted on 11/10/2002 5:46:49 PM PST by LibertarianLiz
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To: Pokey78
Bumpers....
44 posted on 11/10/2002 7:23:45 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
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To: fatguy
Bump for a great 2nd read!
45 posted on 11/10/2002 7:36:14 PM PST by lainde
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To: fatguy
That 6.8% GOP edge in the Congressional vote totals suggests to me that the Dems should be very glad for the gerrymandered districts. If not for incumbent protection, Republican pick-ups might have approached 1994 levels.
46 posted on 11/10/2002 7:46:02 PM PST by WarrenC
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To: fatguy
bump
47 posted on 11/10/2002 8:08:44 PM PST by GOPJ
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To: CyberAnt
Think you're right bump

And ... I was watching Ford; even though I don't agree with his politics, I do like his attitude,

48 posted on 11/10/2002 8:28:29 PM PST by GOPJ
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To: Excuse_My_Bellicosity
bump
49 posted on 11/10/2002 9:45:06 PM PST by GOPJ
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To: fatguy
decaf hazelnut latte

Decaf? Never woulda thunk it...

50 posted on 11/11/2002 8:20:07 AM PST by KayEyeDoubleDee
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