February 6, 2008
Dick Morris is Wrong (Again) (Brent Budowsky)
Let’s set aside the various incorrect forecasts of Mr. Morris and others in their outdated, Hillary-centric analysis, which explains why so many pundits have been so incredibly wrong, so incredibly often.
They miss the point, as he does. They are mired in inside-Washington talking points passed from one insider to another, divorced from the reality of America in 2008. They remain trapped in 1980, 1992, 1996. America has long since moved on.
Dick Morris is flat-out wrong in suggesting that California means Hillary will be nominated and he is even more wrong in suggesting that McCain has appeal to disaffected Obama voters. (Too much Fox News there, not exactly the den of Obama voters, disaffected or not.)
The Democratic race is 50-50 and in my view these endlessly shifting forecasts from the endlessly wrong pundit class are, to coin a phrase, pundit poo that nobody pays attention to, except the pundits. Sorry guys, it's true. Billionaires would be born by anyone going to Vegas and betting against the latest consensus pundit predictions this year.
Of course McCain can beat Hillary or Obama and either Hillary or Obama can beat McCain. Enough spin. Anyone who posits a result with anything resembling certainty should not be taken seriously, and those who have done this, so far in this campaign, have looked ridiculous. (Yet with endless capacity for humiliation, those who have been the most repeatedly wrong continue being repeatedly wrong.)
Here is John McCain's problem:
To the degree he panders to the far right, he loses political independents, whose views are in large numbers diametrically opposite to those of the far right. To the degree he competes for real support among independents, he must take positions that are anathema to the far right, which depresses the Republican base.
In law school they call this the ipsi dipsi. The fault lines between independents and the far right are unbridgeable, clashing with hostility, irreconcilable, diametrically opposite.
If John McCain tries to straddle these lines, his voice would climb five octaves higher!
The Dick Morris analysis is backward, passé, ancient history, because he applies linear logic that worked in his days of triangulating with Bill Clinton but is fossilized and obsolete in the transforming political realities of 2008.
Obama has the best straight shot because his natural tendencies and policies bridge the Democratic constituencies and independent constituencies, which for 75 percent of independents are 90 percent in agreement.
If Hillary is nominated, while not as natural with independents, she will have major openings as McCain plays to the right, which he will do. If perchance he does not, some of his base stays home, and in the post-Bush era, with Republicans facing intrinsic weakness, there is no margin for error.
Dick Morris may be right for 1980, 1992 or 1996. Wrong century. We are in transforming times, and he remains trapped in a past that died with the enormous revulsion of political independents towards George W. Bush, a line that not even John McCain can straddle successfully.
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The Republican Party is finished in it's current incarnation. The likely McCain/Huckabee ticket will appeal to the following select few: those who just cannot accept a woman or a minority as a US President, those who hate Hillary with passion (if it's her), those who are very worried about Global Warming, accept open borders, but are also concerned about the Islamic threat, those who will vote Republican out of reflex, or those who don't believe that Hillary and/or Obama have enough experience and will take any experience as applicable, and some number of left-leaning evangelicals. That's not nearly enough to defeat the enthusiastic Democratic electorate.
The Republican Party has drifted to a big government, centrist on many liberal issues, but strong on Defense definition. This is a losing formula, and as no strong conservative candidate emerged, this will lead to such a devastating defeat that the Party will have to reinvent itself. When all the illegals are legalized and the subsequent family reunification follows, there will never again be a chance for a Republican victory. There may be a short-term Republican Presidency while not all the illegals and their relatives are voting citizens, but then it's over for at least fifty years. Enjoy the ride to the Left Democratic reality.
Comment by Igor R. — February 6, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
Obama wins out in the open; Hillary wins in secret.
This is bugging the crap out of me: how come whenever the voting is done out in the open, Barack wins (usually by big margins), but when voting is done in secret on hackable voting machines, Clinton usually wins? Call me crazy, but after years of watching how devious Karl and Co. are, and after two presidential elections where elections were suspect, I swear I'm convinced SOMEONE is rigging the democratic race to make sure it drags and drags and drags and drains and bloodies the candidates, when it seems to me that Barack has the big mo. And I don't think the caucus vs. primary issue can be explained by the Bradley Effect (where people will say in public that they're willing to vote for an African American person to try to appear "politically correct", but then when voting in secret, they won't vote for an African American). I'm still convinced there was something fishy that happened in N.H., and I think it was done to stop Obama's huge momentum. Am I the only person that is worried that the primaries can be rigged as long as we are voting on secretly programmed voting machines?
Comment by LawrenceKansan — February 6, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
Igor, you have grown tremendously over the years. The Kool Aid ran dry. Is there hope for Rosie?
Comment by Chris Calbi — February 6, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
I think a good analogy for these neocons (Dick too) in the Republican party is this;
It's like they (kooky neocons) are at a GOP picnic playing a game of tug-of-war with the other side (independents and moderates), and the other side let's go of the rope. The neocons have all subsequently fallen on top of one another, and yet they think they have to keep pulling.
Comment by Chris in NM — February 6, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
Chris, I'm not blind to reality. Just because I see the effect of Bush's policies doesn't mean I agree with some of the Democratic alternatives. It also doesn't mean that I don't value some of the ones most despised by his enemies. But in any case, what I stated as the effect of all this is a prediction of the future, not a judgment call. You may see the future in the same general terms as me, but you may find it hopeful while I find it profoundly distressing.
Comment by Igor R. — February 6, 2008 @ 8:36 pm
Igor, I hope you're right! Let the Republican party die. They have never done anything for me and other working class people.
If your religous, I hope you will remember the souls of the million-plus innocent Iraqis who have died at the hands of George Bush and the Republican Crusaders.
Comment by Smilinjack — February 6, 2008 @ 11:52 pm
Igor, what you describe is the way it used to be, and hopefully will be in the future. People of various belief sets can agree on some issues and disagree on others. They can predict or even hope for the same conclusion, even when the method to get there is different.
Thankfully, I believe that we are coming back around to that. These last eight years were different, because a President was appointed instead of elected. That being the case, that shallow ignorant man, and those that control him, were still determined to rule from the Far Right. A wiser man would have rode the middle, if he cared about his country and a healing process.
We can also agree that America will be great again. This has been a very rough patch.
Comment by Chris Calbi — February 8, 2008 @ 11:08 am
Those who underestimate John McCain do so at their own peril.
Comment by Uncle Sam — February 13, 2008 @ 10:09 am