WILKIE, DEWEY, NIXON, CLINTON, ?:

. . . And Get The Big Things Right. (AL FROM, 11/15/02, Wall Street Journal)

Democrats took a licking last Tuesday, but they ought not let their disappointment turn to despair. They can reclaim the White House in 2004. As history has shown, big turnarounds can happen quickly. Richard Nixon won the White House four years after Barry Goldwater's 1964 shellacking. Bill Clinton won re-election two years after the Republican landslide in 1994. [...]

Once the Democrats earn voter confidence on national security and the economy, voters will listen to all the other good things they have to say.

Fourth, Democrats need to offer bold, innovative reforms, not incremental change. A bold tax overhaul would be a start. And there are plenty of other big challenges in search of big ideas: the aging of America and the baby-boom retirement; exploding health costs, insuring the uninsured, and providing long-term care; balancing work and family; and achieving energy independence. If Democrats tackle these challenges with approaches President Bush can't co-opt, voters will reward them.

Mr. From here moves from right to wrong with breathtaking speed. Nixon and Clinton did indeed win personal victories in '68 and '96, but they did so at the expense of their parties. Each adopted the opposition's policies, but promised to enact them in more responsible fashion, which, given the state of the opposing party, seemed reasonably attractive to folks. Conspicuously, neither offered anything like bold reform. Each was an incrementalist and, in fact, implicitly ran as the adult supervisor needed for a Congress that was fully expected to remain in the other party's hands.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 16, 2002 6:36 AM