The Dog in the Manger

I’d like to commend a rather gloomy post by Shaun Mullen over at The Moderate Voice, “The Great National Blame Game”, to your attention. In it he considers the domestic political repercussions of “losing Iraq” (in the same vein in which China, Cuba, or Viet Nam were said to have been lost).

Just as interesting are the comments. Please read them as well.

I see two assumptions being made in the post and comments. First, I think it’s being assumed that the Democrats will win the presidency in 2008 and, second, I think it’s being assumed that we’ll be withdrawing our forces from Iraq in the near future. I don’t think that either of those things is a done deal.

George Bush is not running in 2008. He’ll be the dog in the manger but he’s not running himself nor will anyone who’s arguably his anointed successor. And, as to whether we’ll withdraw from Iraq by 2008, pay more attention to what the Democratic Congressional leadership does than to what it says. There is absolutely no question in my mind that Democrats will be running against both George Bush and the war in Iraq (I think that Republicans will, too).

Historically, the candidate who has painted the most optimistic view of America and its future has won election to the presidency. That’s Obama’s great attraction and great advantage as a candidate.

8 comments… add one
  • shaun Link

    Two teenie correctives:

    I did not say or infer in the post that the Democrats would win the White House in 2008. In fact, I noted their predeliction for squandering big advantages.

    I did not address the troop withdrawal issue, and if I had I might have pointed to one of my posts a day earlier noting the possibility that there will be a goodly sized “permanent” or “long-term” U.S. force.

    Meanwhile, I certainly agree with your assessment regarding Obama.

  • shaun, it struck me that several of your commenters were assuming both of those things; I didn’t mean to say that you were assuming a Democratic victory in 2008. For something to have been lost, the battle must be over. As long as we have troops in Iraq, te Iraq war is not over and Iraq cannot be said to have been lost. That’s why I presumed that you were making the assumption of near-term U. S. withdrawal. If I concluded wrong, at least you can see how I made my mistake.

    On Obama I would actually go farther: I think it extremely unlikely that any of the other Democratic candidates can win. It’s just a bare possibility that Edwards could create the necessary tone; it’s all but certain that Hillary Clinton cannot.

    I haven’t figured out how to put this into post form but I think that the Democratic Party is on the horns of a dilemma. Hillary Clinton and her campaign have a truly brilliant strategy for victory in the primaries: hold the floor. Secure enough of the attention, money, and sense of inevitability that the nomination is, indeed, inevitable. But I really don’t believe she can win the general election.

  • Chris Link

    Dave-

    As far as Republicans running against Bush, have you seen any of the Republican candidate debates? I see relatively few of the candidates working to distance themselves from the President – and that may be because Bush still has something like a >60% approval rating among likely Republican primary voters.

    I have no doubt that whoever gets the nomination will immediately switch to a more centrist stance, but there’ll be very little wiggle room for them to do so if they want to keep the base turning out on election day.

  • Chris:

    No, I haven’t listened to them. I have no interest in listening to them whatever since I’m a Democrat and will be voting as a Democrat in the primary. But I’ve predicted since 2003 that both Republicans and Democrats would be running against Bush in 2008, I’ve seen no reason to believe otherwise, and I’m sticking to my guns.

  • Chris Link

    Dave-

    Well, I’m a Democrat as well, but insofar as I’m interested in reading and writing about politics, it makes sense to keep track of what our political opponents are doing, right?

    And I’m not pointing this out to be sarcastic or rude, but there is a glaring logical contradiction in what you just said: on the one hand you claim not to have seen any evidence that the Republican candidates aren’t running against Bush, but on the other hand, you say you haven’t seen said candidates behavior in some of their most important campaign events thus far. Which is to say, if you’re going to ignore possibly relevant evidence, you might not want to be so vocal about sticking to your guns. 😉

  • PD Shaw Link

    Chris, I’ve seen parts of the debates and I thought they were distancing themsleves from Bush. They’ve criticized him repeatedly on spending, immigration, and the conduct of the war. They have not called for withdrawal, but have complained about Rumsfeld, the failure to sell the war domestically and abroad, and the failure to change tactics earlier. They’ve not distanced themselves to the Left.

  • Chris Link

    PD-

    I’ll agree with you that the extent to which they’ve distanced themselves from Bush probably depends on the politics of the observer. That said, I personally didn’t see much that I think a Democrat or independent would call “running against George Bush.”

  • kreiz Link

    There is considerable Bush fatigue- ergo the assumption that voters will elect a Dem. But the 08 election could easily line up like the 76 election. We forget that there was a tad bit of Nixon/Ford fatigue that year. My sense is that the GOP candidate will close the gap come election time, making it a nail biter. I agree that the first-tier Dem candidates (except Obama) are relatively weak general election contenders. The GOP has the opposite problem- it’s not excited about any primary nominee (yet) but has stronger general election prospects. I’m puzzled why the GOP endorses ‘stay the course’ at this point. But they’ll be more than happy to run against GWB on the immigration issue.

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