THE LIGHT SLOWLY DAWNS

Worried Democrats See Daunting '04 Hurdles (ADAM NAGOURNEY, 8/31/03, NY Times)

The race for the Democratic presidential nomination shifts into a more intense phase this Labor Day weekend, with some party leaders worried about the strength of their field of candidates and fearful of what they view as President Bush's huge advantage going into next year's election.

Many prominent Democrats said that Mr. Bush might be vulnerable, given problems with the economy, and continued American fatalities in Iraq. But they said he could be unseated only by an aggressive, partisan challenge that built on Democratic anger lingering from the 2000 election, and by a nominee who somehow managed to survive a complicated nominating fight that was pulling their party to the left.

This is not an election that the Democrats can win. If there's any question about that, consider this: if the election had been held any time over the past two months--while the daily killings of GI's in Iraq have been going on and while the economy has been flat--Mr. Bush would have gotten 54+% of the vote. In other words, given the conditions that Democrats hope for, the President would have been re-elected easily.

But it gets worse: Democrats are now counting on the economy staying in the doldrums and the Iraq situation being the same (and our primary foreign policy concern) a year from now. Those are absurd expectations and do not comprise an election strategy. They are a hope against history and against the interests of the nation. Add in the inevitability of a New Englander liberal as the nominee and you've the recipe for not just a Bush victory but an epic one. The only safe state for the Democrats at this point isn't even a state but the District of Columbia. George Bush will not only be competitive but could win everywhere else, including the home states of both Dr. Dean (when did that start?) and John Kerry--which both elected Republican governors just this past November. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 31, 2003 5:52 PM