December 7, 2002
THE TALL DUKAKIS:
Soft Serve (Peter Beinart, 12.05.02, New Republic)The first time Russert asked him if he'd support "military action against Iraq even without the United Nations," Kerry said such action would be "an enormous mistake." Revealingly, Kerry simply assumed that unilateral war would result from Bush's itchy trigger finger; the idea that the Security Council might oppose war even in the face of genuine Iraqi violations seems barely to have crossed his mind. "I went to New York to meet with the Security Council," Kerry explained, "and they assured me that if we go through that process, and in the end Saddam Hussein does not live up to his responsibilities, they are prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with us." Kerry never explained why promises from long-standing Saddam-appeasers like France and Russia should be believed. And, by taking them at face value, he displayed the central fallacy of liberal multilateralism--that because Europe can be trusted to confront foreign threats, the United States never need go it alone.Faced with Kerry's faith in the Security Council, Russert made the question more pointed, asking Kerry how he'd respond "if the French, Russians, Chinese say, `Well, you know what? It's not a big breach. Let's give him [Saddam] another chance.'" Kerry responded, "If you have a breach that, by everybody's standard, at least in the United States, those of us in the House and Senate, and the president, join together and make a judgment ... and then others--some of them can't be persuaded--that's a different decision." With his response, Kerry conveniently overlooked the fact that he and the rest of the House and Senate had already made a judgment--to relinquish their power to determine what constitutes a casus belli to President Bush.
Finally, Russert asked again: "But you would be willing to support the president without U.N. support?" And, for a third time, Kerry dissembled: "I would be willing to support the president providing there is an imminent threat that has been shown and that the breach reaches the standard that we all agree on." Imminent threat? Surely Kerry already rendered judgment on that question when he voted to authorize the use of force. But, no matter how hard Russert pressed, Kerry would not take responsibility for his vote on the Senate floor.
Kerry's Iraq answers were, in short, a study in the evasiveness that has cost the Democrats so dearly in 2002.
Given that HI, MN, and MA all elected Republican governors in November, and that Gray Davis polled so far below 50%, we may be approaching the point where Marion Barry is the only Democrat who would carry his home state's electoral votes in '04 (or non-state in this case). Posted by Orrin Judd at December 7, 2002 1:58 PM
I'm not so optimistic, especially after the LA election . . . MA and HI are solidly Democratic, they will always elect Dems to national offices, they only elect Republican governors because their legislatures are so solidly Democratic they don't want the machine to totally dominate. In MN Republicans benefitted from a strong third party and a far-left Democratic party. But now that the Democrats are losing they'll moderate themselves, and the Jesse Ventura-led Independents are already fading.
The Democrats are evasive but we've seen in all too many cases that evasiveness can work. Nor are Republicans showing up their evasiveness by offering a forthright conservative message.
pj:
It's a presidential election though--even Reagan carried HI and MA, and nearly MN against a resident. (see my Willmoore Kendall review for why)
Yes, so Bush can
win these states, but I think the chances that he will
are very slim. Reagan could do it because so many Democrats thought Carter's administration had been a failure. They don't feel the same way about Clinton's.
I think Bush has a very good chance of winning MN. The MN Republican party is incredibly energized, whereas the DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor, as they like to call themselves here) is not. I don't think that they are going to moderate themselves--the reason they lost, they claim, is because they didn't have Paul Wellstone, and so therefore will go looking for more Wellstone types. Where they are going to find anyone, I don't know, since Roger Moe didn't even break 40 percent in the governor's race, and all they could dig up as a replacement for Wellstone was a long fossilized Walter Mondale. The DFL has no leadership, while the Republicans here have it in spades. Unless they pull themselves together quickly, 2004 will probably be another strong Republican showing here.
And, of course, if Ralph Nader runs again, and carries a strong anti-war message, the Dems are dead in the water everywhere in the nation.
That's all wrong about Hawaii.
Until this year, it had had a totally Democratic
administration for 40 years. Hawaii Republicans
are an out-group, attacting environmentalists
and other fringe factions that cannot get a
foot in the establishment door and would not
be found in Mainland Republican parties.
The voters of Hawaii have not suddenly become
Republicans. Legislative Democrats got just
as many votes as ever in November. It was
executive Democrats who got voted out.
It's the old story. Any party in power so long
gets sclerotic. Also, about 10 prominent
Democrats have been sent to prison in the past
year.
I wouldn't attach any national significance at
all to the 2002 vote in Hawaii.
I agree with others that, right now, a Bush-Kerry matchup would be similar to the Bush-Dukakis results - Bush wins 35 of 50 states but since Kerry wins the big Democrat states (California, NY) its not a landslide for electoral votes (i.e 320-215). And as everyone also points out a bad war or economy could do Bush in.
Posted by: AWW at December 8, 2002 2:21 PMHarry:
I'll alert the media that neither Nixon nor Reagan carried HI. They'll surely correct their reports.
You're right about the presidential votes. But those did
not create a state Republican party.
Lingle was the first non-kook candidate the party had
put up for governor in four decades. And all the pundits
out here agree she had no coattails.
The situation is very close to what happened in Virginia
when Linwood Holton became the first Republican governor there.
There were not enough other Republicans in the state then for him to fill all his patronage posts, so he had to
appoint Democrats. (A colleague of mine back then was
the patronage manager.) Lingle is not quite as badly off as Holton was, and Hawaii is trending toward being a
two-party state. But it's not there yet.