Former "troll" talk now mainstream

[Beet]

Just a few months back when Reaganfan was first here, people called him a troll for, among other things, being wildly optimistic on GOP prospects. One of the biggest predictions made by Reaganfan was that the 2004 election was like the 1896 election... this was also on the Rasmussen website. The basic idea is that 2004 is a re-aligning election like 1896, and will usher in decades of GOP dominance like the 1896 election did (although 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1916 all saw progressive candidates returned to office).

Now the former speculation is being predicted by the nation's most respected politico, Karl Rove, as the media interviews him in his victory lap:

Rove, whom Bush called the "architect" of his political campaign, likened Tuesday's election to that of 1896, when voters picked Republican William McKinley and "realigned American politics years afterward."

``There are no permanent majorities in American politics,'' Rove said on the NBC program. ``They last for about 20 or 30 or 40, or, in the case of the Roosevelt coalition, 50 or 60 years, and then they disappear. But would I like to see the Republican Party be the dominant party for whatever time history gives it the chance to be? You bet.''

Reuters

[opebo]

The way the pendulum swing in American poltitics appears to work is this - the Democrats raise working class people to a level of prosperity where they forget who they are and begin to vote Republican.  Then a gradual decline follows, until they are sufficiently impoverished to begin to vote Democrat again.  Repeat.

[Umengus]

The way the pendulum swing in American poltitics appears to work is this - the Democrats raise working class people to a level of prosperity where they forget who they are and begin to vote Republican.  Then a gradual decline follows, until they are sufficiently impoverished to begin to vote Democrat again.  Repeat.

there is still lots of poor people and these guys refuse to vote dem because for them, the futur will not change with or without the dem party at the power. Hence, they prefer to vote for gop because the gop values are their values. I think that if the dem party wants to become again the majority party, he must become populist: conservative on values (or rather: each state makes his will) and "left populist" on economy (in the RFK style). The results should be: poor people (black+white poors)+middle class+jew= majority

The only man who can make this for me is John Edwards.

[Silent Hunter]

This isn't a 'phase shift' election- 1968 was a phase shift election.

[opebo]

The way the pendulum swing in American poltitics appears to work is this - the Democrats raise working class people to a level of prosperity where they forget who they are and begin to vote Republican.  Then a gradual decline follows, until they are sufficiently impoverished to begin to vote Democrat again.  Repeat.

there is still lots of poor people and these guys refuse to vote dem because for them, the futur will not change with or without the dem party at the power. Hence, they prefer to vote for gop because the gop values are their values. I think that if the dem party wants to become again the majority party, he must become populist: conservative on values (or rather: each state makes his will) and "left populist" on economy (in the RFK style). The results should be: poor people (black+white poors)+middle class+jew= majority

The only man who can make this for me is John Edwards.

Great, so we're still stuck with the intolerant theocracy, just with worse economics.

[Andrew]

. . . the nation's most respected politico, Karl Rove . . .

?

[NHPolitico]

So, we know what Rove's screen name is, I guess...

[Ben.]

Do you suppose that after Bush, McCain will be the equivalent of Teddy Roosevelt (I wonder if McCain would only serve one term though, because of his age, that said he’d still sweep it) and then some moderate conservative like Allen or Owens become President… it a thought.   

[M]

Hehe... remember this little post of mine?

The Democrats have, since 2000, been getting angrier and angrier at the GOP and later independents. It all started with the Recount. Not the impeachment- that was added onto the list later my demagogic revisionists.

Then there was the 11th, when the most liberal Dem watched Bush with respect and admiration grab that bullhorn. "I can hear you! The whole world can hear you! And the people who knocked those towers down will be hearing from us real soon." The nation cheered the Patriot Act, the whole country listened with approval as Bush announced that rogue states were terrorists as much as the terrorists themselves.

We went to war with the Taliban. RW Apple's first quagmirish piece came out. Everyone still supported the president officially. But the very lefty among us began to feel uncomfortable. They couldn't oppose the war, but the brief surge of patriotism was draining from them adn they were revolted by their own proud American feelings, the sort that has marginalized partisanship in WW2.

After the war they began to vent. The war was strategically brilliant and morally praiseworthy, but we had failed to secure the peace. The nation was rampant with guerillas. This was true, and nobody really noticed that anything was too amiss.

But Vietnam syndrome cannot be cured as simply as Lost Generation syndrome was cured by Pearl Harbor. It was too deep and too fundamentally anti-American. By the time, an entire year later, Bush wanted to take on the next rogue terror mastermind, Saddam Hussein, liberals were remembering that Bush has "stolen" the election.The majority of lefty politicians tepidly supported the war. But their oen support was decaying. Eventually straddling the divide was the worst choice of all. Lefty idealogues that Dems had betrayed them with their pseudo-patriotism, And the GOP and moderate independents realized the Dems had dumped the idea of bipartisan pro-Americanship against our common enemy. So, in 2002, we dumped them.

Now, the presidential election was heating up. Daschle and increasingly Kerry sounded anti-American, pro-France, and at least sympathetic to Baathism, PLO, etc. They made up the ridiculous idea we were not at war with terror sponsors, or even terrorism itself persay, but merely with Al-Qaeda.

Then came a horrid shock to all lib idealogues. We finally went to war with Iraq and 3/4 Americans felt it was the right thing to do. Now, in case any of you haven't figured it out yet, WMD was just an unsuccessful ploy to get France to go along with us. It was outweiged by France's Iraqi debt, oil contracts, personal involvement with Saddam's WMD, etc. We went to wwar with Saddam because of 9/11. No, Saddam didn't plan. He may have given them operational support through Prague embassy, but that really wasn't the point. We went after Saddam because he was a.) a terror sponsor, and b.) a brutal dictator, whose removal wouyld spark a domino effect in the Mideast. (BTW, it has- see Bahrein, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, UAE, Morocco, Egypt, even Saudi steps toward democracy. Also Israel's improving relations w/ many Arab states.)

So post war the dems were mad as hell and they wanted no more of it. Bush was a liar, we went to war for noreason, or oil, or to gain a colony (huh?), or as parrt of an evil Zionist conspiracy, or cause they just liked war, or because Bush was really stupid, or even all of the above.

All this without our little friend Howie, the darling of the media and academia (whose views he shares completely). So where's he come from? Lurch's pride.

Yes, Lurch. (Althought to me he more closely resembles Sam the Eagle.) Little Howard Dean, an angry yippie and an absolute nobody, started attacking Kerry. Kerry, he claimed, supported war with Iraq and then turned around and opposed it. He, Dean, had always opposed it. This was nectar and ambrosia to dogmatic Dems. But they wouldn't have heard a bit of it. After all, Graham had a similar campaign that never caught on, and he was a sitting senator from an important state.

Suddenly, Senator Kerry takes off the gloves, saying furiously that he has an impressize war resume and a proud record of public service, so bug off, you little twit. Suddenly people saw Dean. And more and more of 'em liked what they saw.

So Dean moves further and further to the left, and rich yippies are giving him millions. Kerry just swerves left in a vain attempt to catch up with him. Everyone else also moves leftand gets angrier. So now it looks like the choice for Dems is Dean or Dean clones. Around this time Vilsack announces Dean is part of a top tier. Time Magazine picks this up and suddenly everyone knows Dean's name.

Now, Joe isn't taken in. The media can't stand him. He had a few brownie points for being Gore's running mate and nobly waiting to see if Gore would run for pres (which of course he wouldn't, knowing he would lose clearly this time.) Joe gets a few good punches in defending Israel. The media barely mentions this. When they do, the spin is that Lieberman is the negative one for bashing Dean for bashing Bush, and suddenly Joe's candidacy disappears.

Clinton, Hillary, Gore, and McAuliffe are getting more and more worried. The coalition Clinton had brought together and made the strongest political power in the nation was fracturing. it was spinning off to the left, and Bill knew he had to avert disaster, by any means necessary.

Enter Wesley Clark. The general, a lifelong Republican who never got along at all with Clinton, let the Russkis take Pristina airport (which they still hold), and can't make up his mind on a single issue, suddenly gets a lot of media buzz. Why? He's swarming with Clintonites. And he goes... nowhere. Ouch. Every speech he makes has a new wacky foreign policy idea, and all the while he says presidential candidates shouldn't make foreign policy decisions. He's not even a good speaker. So he sinks like a stone.

Some effort now gets pumped into Edwards campaign, which was on life support. A formerly working class Southron with, uh, "great" hair, he briefly had a lot of media buzz several months back. Then people figured out he was a broken record with a single line: "My father used to work in a sawmill with lint in his hair and grease in his face." This was his answer to every question from, "why not wait till 2008?", to, "how would you deal with North Korea?" Where that'll go, we have yet to see. But it doen't look too encouraging.

Then we have Dick Gephardt. Oh, boy. The man who kept getting a few more seats in the House and a few more and then... 2002 disaster. The darling of organized labor, whose components are going Dean. The caucus is going to be on a below zero January evening. Who would motivate you to go out and "chill" with your fellow partisans, and nominate your candidate? The entertaining little doctor, with his strongly held radical positions and his fury? Or Richard Gephardt, who was serious concerns about the poposed FTAA? Um, yeah...

Well, at this point I'd call Howie unstoppable. Thoughts?

[angus]

Just a few months back when Reaganfan was first here, people called him a troll for, among other things, being wildly optimistic on GOP prospects. One of the biggest predictions made by Reaganfan was that the 2004 election was like the 1896 election... this was also on the Rasmussen website. The basic idea is that 2004 is a re-aligning election like 1896, and will usher in decades of GOP dominance like the 1896 election did (although 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1916 all saw progressive candidates returned to office).

Now the former speculation is being predicted by the nation's most respected politico, Karl Rove, as the media interviews him in his victory lap:

Rove, whom Bush called the "architect" of his political campaign, likened Tuesday's election to that of 1896, when voters picked Republican William McKinley and "realigned American politics years afterward."

``There are no permanent majorities in American politics,'' Rove said on the NBC program. ``They last for about 20 or 30 or 40, or, in the case of the Roosevelt coalition, 50 or 60 years, and then they disappear. But would I like to see the Republican Party be the dominant party for whatever time history gives it the chance to be? You bet.''

Reuters

surreal, ain't it?  You gotta admit that the GOP has reason to be giddy.  Everyone doing the talking-head circuit is congratulating them, and singing Rove's praises.  Dems included.  I like Ed Rollin's famous quote, "The goal is to win."  As in, it isn't how you play the game, it's whether you win or lose.  If you can divorce yourself from having a favorite, and just sit back and enjoy the surrealism and sport, then it becomes quite interesting.  Like a good football game between two good and evenly matched teams, but where you didn't place a bet on either side.  Just watch and enjoy.  In the end, the GOP really won this one, favoritisms aside.  And yes, they're gloating in an overly optimistic (trollish) fashion, and being helped along even by their opponents, in some cases.  Very weird, but entertaining. 

welcome back, by the way.

[opebo]

Just a few months back when Reaganfan was first here, people called him a troll for, among other things, being wildly optimistic on GOP prospects. One of the biggest predictions made by Reaganfan was that the 2004 election was like the 1896 election... this was also on the Rasmussen website. The basic idea is that 2004 is a re-aligning election like 1896, and will usher in decades of GOP dominance like the 1896 election did (although 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1916 all saw progressive candidates returned to office).

Now the former speculation is being predicted by the nation's most respected politico, Karl Rove, as the media interviews him in his victory lap:

Rove, whom Bush called the "architect" of his political campaign, likened Tuesday's election to that of 1896, when voters picked Republican William McKinley and "realigned American politics years afterward."

``There are no permanent majorities in American politics,'' Rove said on the NBC program. ``They last for about 20 or 30 or 40, or, in the case of the Roosevelt coalition, 50 or 60 years, and then they disappear. But would I like to see the Republican Party be the dominant party for whatever time history gives it the chance to be? You bet.''

Reuters

surreal, ain't it?  You gotta admit that the GOP has reason to be giddy.  Everyone doing the talking-head circuit is congratulating them, and singing Rove's praises.  Dems included.  I like Ed Rollin's famous quote, "The goal is to win."  As in, it isn't how you play the game, it's whether you win or lose.  If you can divorce yourself from having a favorite, and just sit back and enjoy the surrealism and sport, then it becomes quite interesting.  Like a good football game between two good and evenly matched teams, but where you didn't place a bet on either side.  Just watch and enjoy.  In the end, the GOP really won this one, favoritisms aside.  And yes, they're gloating in an overly optimistic (trollish) fashion, and being helped along even by their opponents, in some cases.  Very weird, but entertaining. 

welcome back, by the way.

The goal is to win, assuming the coalition you put to gether in order to win doesn't subvert your original agenda.  I'm not sure the wealthy fully know what they're doing winning through alliance with the religious. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Um... what a load of bullsh**t.
As unpleasant as this is for both parties, the days when one of them could accurately be described as a "Majority Party" are long over (unless 35-39% give or take differential turnout is a "majority"...)

And they ain't coming back either (unless someone kills all the Independents).

Anyone who claims otherwise (at the moment this will be Republicans, in a few years it might well be Democrats. Who knows) is kidding themselves.
Look at ALL the facts and you'll see why.

[M]

This is quite true. Last year, I was still on a 9/11 high. However, I do think we have a good chance for 2008 if we run Rudy, Arnold, Condi or McCain, even Frist. If the dems nominate Bayh, though, he would win big, likely with my vote.

[AuH2O]

The way the pendulum swing in American poltitics appears to work is this - the Democrats raise working class people to a level of prosperity where they forget who they are and begin to vote Republican.  Then a gradual decline follows, until they are sufficiently impoverished to begin to vote Democrat again.  Repeat.

You sound like an 11 year old, drunk, Neomarxist. Not that I've ever heard such a person, but if he existed, he would sound quite similar.

Where did you go to college? I'll make sure no one I know goes there.

[opebo]

The way the pendulum swing in American poltitics appears to work is this - the Democrats raise working class people to a level of prosperity where they forget who they are and begin to vote Republican.  Then a gradual decline follows, until they are sufficiently impoverished to begin to vote Democrat again.  Repeat.

You sound like an 11 year old, drunk, Neomarxist. Not that I've ever heard such a person, but if he existed, he would sound quite similar.

Where did you go to college? I'll make sure no one I know goes there.

Where do you think the Post-WWII middle class came from?  It was created by the Democratic Party.

[A18]

It was created when we became a much wealthier nation.

[??????????]

Rasmussen had an article about this before Goldie brought it up on the boards.

[they don't love you like i love you]

However, I do think we have a good chance for 2008 if we run Rudy, Arnold, Condi or McCain, even Frist.

Rudy - "I am pro-choice, and do not favor a ban on partial-birth abortions."
Arnold-ineligible
Condi-the GOP will nominate a black woman who's never held an elective office? uh huh...
McCain-too old
Frist-what's so great about him?

[Beet]

Rasmussen had an article about this before Goldie brought it up on the boards.

Ok, I thought it was the other way around. Its funny, on the site they promised a new scenario coming next week, but it didn't.

[J. J.]

Condi-the GOP will nominate a black woman who's never held an elective office? uh huh...

I cannot believe that you would make such a racist and sexist assumption.  Powell could have easily won the nomination in 1996, had he chosen to try for it.  Elizabeth Dole is still a potential VP candidate.

[bushforever]

Giuliani-Rice '08.

[Beet]

I like Ed Rollin's famous quote, "The goal is to win." 

thanks, angus. That says it all in politics, doesn't it?

[??????????]

Giuliani-Rice '08.

Rice/Powell vs Hillary/Moore!! lol

[danwxman]

Giuliani-Rice '08.

Won't happen.

[bushforever]

Why not?  They both have broad appeal, a positive vision, and great intelligence.  True, they may be a bit hard to persuade to the heartland, but I think they would turn out to be ok.  Maybe our nation's not ready for Condi as VP.  I don't know.