by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
W<\/span>ill President Bush’s current unpopularity translate into a Democratic recapture of either the House or Senate this fall \u2014 or a victory in the 2008 presidential election?<\/p>\n Probably not.<\/p>\n Despite widespread unhappiness with the Republicans, it is hard to envision a majority party run by Howard Dean, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n All sorts of apparent and not-so-apparent reasons. First, recent events and trends have complicated Democrats’ talking points about George W. Bush’s purported failings.<\/p>\n The so-called “jobless” recovery has seen low unemployment rates comparable to the\u00a0Clinton\u00a0boom years.<\/p>\n Last September, many people blamed what they viewed as a stingy federal government for the chaos following Hurricane Katrina. But now we learn individuals’ fraudulent claims and spending accounted for $1.4 billion in federal largess. Too much was apparently thrown around from big government too generously, rather than too little, too slowly.<\/p>\n Karl Rove was supposedly going to be “frog-marched” out of the White House in cuffs for a role in outing CIA agent Valerie Plame. Instead, the special prosecutor recently found no evidence that he was involved in any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n And then there’s\u00a0Iraq\u00a0. The recent killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the establishment of a complete Iraqi democratic Cabinet will not ensure a quick victory, as we see from the recent slaughter of American captive soldiers. But both events still weaken the liberal clamor that the American effort at birthing democracy is doomed in\u00a0Iraq\u00a0. Calling for a deadline to leave, as Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Ma.) advocate, is not so compelling when the current policy is based on training the growing Iraqi security forces so that American troops\u00a0can<\/i>\u00a0come home as soon as possible.<\/p>\n T<\/span>hus, looking ahead to the elections, there is little that the Democrats will be able to capitalize on.<\/p>\n Take the budget deficit. Total federal annual revenues have increased despite, or because of, the tax cuts. Yet at the same time budget expenditures in the first Bush term grew at a much faster annual rate than during Bill Clinton’s administration. So the time-honored remedy for the shortfall calls for cuts and a more conservative budget cruncher, hardly a liberal forte.<\/p>\n Even in an area like illegal immigration where Bush is getting hammered by his own party, the Democrats aren’t in good shape. Their similar support for amnesty and guest workers gives them the same Bush negatives on those issues. But they suffer the additional burden of apparent laxity on open borders.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Democrats face a more fundamental, existential problem. The addition of\u00a0China\u00a0and\u00a0India\u00a0to the world capitalist system has brought well over a billion workers into the global marketplace. The planet is now flooded with cheap consumer goods \u2014 at precisely the time the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0economy keeps creating national wealth at a rapid clip.<\/p>\n The result is that while there may be more inequality than ever before in the no-holds-barred world mart, the middle class and poor in the U.S. have access to “things” \u2014 TVs, sound systems, clothes, cars \u2014 undreamed of in the past. We are now in the age of MTV and mass conspicuous consumption, not of the grapes of wrath. American class warfare can no longer be defined by the Democratic Party as an elemental need for a 40-hour workweek, unemployment and disability insurance, or Social Security.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the liberal debate has devolved to why one person has more opportunity for leisure and even nicer things than others do. A sort of envy rather than hunger more often fuels the gripe \u2014 and that should require a subtle Democratic acknowledgment that things continue to improve for everyone.<\/p>\n Finally, in the past, savvy Democrats understood the need for a conservative package for such liberal contents. To win the popular vote in presidential races, the formula was to nominate a Southern governor or senator \u2014 as in 1964, 1976, 1992, 1996 and 2000 \u2014 and then hope either for a Republican scandal such as Watergate or Iran-Contra, or a populist third-party conservative like Ross Perot.<\/p>\n In contrast, recently any time the liberal base got its wish and nominated a Northern progressive \u2014 1968, 1972, 1984, 1988 or 2004 \u2014 the party lost the presidency. So far even Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Katrina and Haditha have not equated to past national scandals; nor will there likely be a prairie-fire independent to draw votes away from the Republicans.<\/p>\n Yes, much of the public is grumpy at high gas prices. It does not like the costs in\u00a0Iraq\u00a0and continuing budget deficits. And people worry about unchecked illegal immigration and dangers on the horizon, from\u00a0Iran\u00a0to\u00a0North Korea\u00a0. But when Americans get inside the voting booth, they probably will think the envisioned Democratic remedy is worse than the current perceived Republican disease.<\/p>\n \u00a92006 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Will President Bush’s current unpopularity translate into a Democratic recapture of either the House or Senate this fall \u2014 or a victory in the 2008 presidential election?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[773],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-11Q","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11939,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/will-2020-be-a-repeat-of-2004-for-democrats\/","url_meta":{"origin":3958,"position":0},"title":"Will 2020 Be a Repeat of 2004 for Democrats?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Democrats by 2004 had become obsessed with defeating incumbent President George W. Bush. Four years earlier, in the 2000 election, Bush had won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote. Democrats were still furious that Bush supposedly had been \u201cselected\u201d by the Supreme\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3751,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/more-bark-than-bite\/","url_meta":{"origin":3958,"position":1},"title":"More Bark Than Bite?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Will the Democrats' new control of the House and Senate shake things up that much abroad? They certainly will have plenty of opportunities to alter the present American course of fighting terrorists, the war in Iraq and our overall foreign policy. For over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2006"","block_context":{"text":"November 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/november-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4196,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-crying-game\/","url_meta":{"origin":3958,"position":2},"title":"The Crying Game","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 23, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"so near in Iraq, so far at home. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online \"The president misled us.\" \"Still no WMDs.\" \"If I had only known then what I do now\u2026\" This is the intellectual level of Democratic wartime criticism about the Bush administration as we near the third\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2005"","block_context":{"text":"November 2005","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2005\/november-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2694,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bush-obsessive-compulsive-disorder\/","url_meta":{"origin":3958,"position":3},"title":"Bush Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Obama continues to trash Bush in words--but his actions speak louder. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Last July I wrote a column entitled \u201cBarack W. Bush\u201d outlining how candidate Barack Obama was strangely emulating Bush policies \u2014 even as he was trashing the president.\u00a0 Nearly a year later,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2009"","block_context":{"text":"June 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/june-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3009,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bush-considered\/","url_meta":{"origin":3958,"position":4},"title":"Bush Considered","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"American is a safer place thanks to his administration. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online A\u00a0disinterested appraisal of Bush administration foreign policy will take years. For millions on the Left, events in Iraq, Guant\u00e1namo, and New Orleans rendered the 43rd president an ill-omened phantasma \u2014 omnipotent, ubiquitous, and responsible\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2009"","block_context":{"text":"January 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/january-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3544,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-many-enemies-of-george-bush\/","url_meta":{"origin":3958,"position":5},"title":"The Many Enemies of George Bush","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services George Bush is not a very popular fellow. Witness the enraged reaction last week from critics to his suggestion that leaving Iraq now could have the same dire consequences as our withdrawal from Vietnam did. \"It just boggles my mind, the distortions I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2007"","block_context":{"text":"September 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/september-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3959,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3958\/revisions\/3959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}