Myths and 2008

Not only has the 2008 election season begun prematurely, but a series of myths about it has been insinuated into the commentary about it.

We are being told that the blogosphere has changed presidential politics unalterably. Breathlessly we are informed that in 2008 Americans will elect the first “Internet” president. Not only are pundits saying this. Bloggers themselves are promoting the notion that they have now “arrived,” and will likely determine the outcome.

But it is instructive, I think, to note the notorious campaign against Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut in 2006. This campaign was largely initiated and fostered by the most well-known lefty netroot blogs who did indeed put forward a candidate against Mr. Lieberman who won the Democratic primary. But Mr. Lieberman reinvented himself as an “Independent Democrat,” and subsequently defeated this Democrat and the Republican in the race by a large margin. Mr. Lieberman now sits in the Senate as an independent who caucuses with his old party, the Democrats, and the margin is one vote — his.

What the blogosphere can do, however, is raise money and produce volunteers. That is because it is read primarily by activists in both parties. While most attention has been given to leftist blogs, some significant conservative blogs have grown and prospered, including Power Line in Minnesota. While Power Line is national in its focus, another partisan political blog in that state, Minnesota Democrats Exposed, has emerged as the most powerful political internet presence there. Its carefully researched campaign against comedian Al Franken’s putative effort to win a Senate seat there in 2008 has devastated Mr. Franken’s public image almost before he began to run for the seat, and has seemingly cemented the idea that the entertainer is an angry, foul-mouthed parvenu instead of a serious-minded candidate. This blog is Mr. Franken’s worst nightmare, and it has provoked many Democratic strategists to try to find another candidate against popular incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

Sen. Hillary Clinton is no favorite of most liberal blogs, but she remains her party’s frontrunner. Likewise, the conservative blogosphere has not been especially friendly to Sen. John McCain, but after a weak winter season during which former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani replaced him as the Republican frontrunner, Mr. McCain is making a comeback, and may yet win the nomination.

Another myth is that conservatives and evangelicals are demoralized, and that some of them will stay home in 2008 because the Republican nominee may not be as much of a “true believer” as they are. Yet polls show that the three least “pure” conservatives — Messrs. Giuliani, McCain and Romney — have most of the support, including among strong conservatives. Although a few ultra-right leaders are saying they will stay home in 2008, there are signs they will not be heeded by the conservative rank and file.

An almost completely unnoticed phenomenon is the “Salute to Israel” movement organized by Pastor John Hagee, a broadcast evangelist from San Antonio who reaches millions of conservative Christians via television every week. Eschewing the usual social conservative issues, Mr. Hagee has focused on a single issue, U.S. support for Israel and the Jewish community worldwide, and has rallied evangelicals into an unprecedented non-conversionary campaign to rally public and political support against the increasing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic tone in Europe and among the left in the United States.

Overcoming initial resistance from most of his fellow television evangelists, beginning in the 1980s, Mr. Hagee has recently organized numerous well-attended events (by evangelicals and religious Jews) in almost every large city in the country. He claims that he now has up to 50 million evangelicals aroused to the issue and on his side. Even if this figure is exaggerated, there is little question that if the populist base of the Democratic Party continues its drift toward a less favorable attitude to Israel and applies this pressure to its eventual presidential nominee, they could cause a powerful reaction at the polls in 2008.

A second reason that conservatives may stay home next year is a myth is the very public awareness in recent weeks that conservatives are one vote short of a solid majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Anthony Kennedy did side with them on the partial-birth decision, but he has sided with the liberals on other important issues. Pro-life conservatives know that a Democratic president in 2009 will undo their recent gains, and they will not be staying home next year.

The current self-indulgence of the Democratic congressional leadership in calling for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq has created the newest political myth about 2008, that the Democrats will continue to placate their left populist base and throw away the momentum they gained in 2006.

If they do, and persist in their efforts to raise taxes dramatically, it may be the shortest political realignment in U.S. history. Just as the GOP contest lacks overly conservative presidential aspirants, the Democratic race has so far only one truly left first-tier candidate, former Sen. John Edwards. Mrs. Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama (probably) and Gov. Bill Richardson, on the other hand, are more down-to-earth liberals, and more likely to move, if one of them is nominated, to the political center.

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-This article originally appeared in The Washington Times on May 3rd, 2007.

A Bumpy Start for the '08 Campaign

In the rush of candidates to declare themselves into the 2008 race for president, it has only belatedly been noticed that Ms. Pandora, that original celebrity of Greek mythology, has declared herself into the contest. Of course, she's not a candidate, but for the zillionth time she opened her legendary jar (it was a mis-translation to call it a box), and let out the usual suspects of greed, vanity, slander, envy and covetousness.

A quick review of Ms. Pandora's resume: In Greek mythology, she was the first woman, and the giver of gifts. Everything was fine until the god Prometheus stole the secret of fire and gave it to mankind. The uber-god Zeus then ordered Haephaestus, the god of technology, to make Pandora part of the punishment of mankind for this theft. She subsequently opened the jar which contained and held back the miseries of mankind and loosed them on the world. No wonder the ancients treated women so badly. (But if Zeus ran for president in 2008, he wouldn't carry a single precinct.)

Politically incorrect as she may be, however, Ms. Pandora is in the game in 2008. That's because, instead of waiting until the autumn of 2007 to declare their intentions, most of the presidential aspirants this time didn't even wait for the ball to fall in Times Square, and started announcing as soon as the 2006 elections were concluded.

Several commentators, myself included, have begun to observe this premature phenomenon. Undoubtedly, as some have already suggested, the technology of communications has undergone such a transformation in the past four years, that it was a jar waiting to be opened. In any event, Mr. Haephaestus is back in business.

It has also been suggested that some partisans are in a hurry to get Mr. Bush out of his command post, and consider an early campaign a way to distract him from his duties.

But no matter the causes, the "miseries" are out of the jar, and as far as I know, once they're out, there is no putting them back in.

So what will Ms. Pandora's little ritual do to the 2008 contest?

It will, as David Broder and others point out, make fundraising and political discourse go out of control.

Certainly, the financial aspect of campaigns that last eighteen months is a farce. Mrs. Clinton declared McCain-Feingold dead as a smelt in the harbor when she was the first to opt out of the federal program. One by one, the other serious candidates in both parties (perhaps minus Senator McCain) are following suit. The sheer cost of a campaign visit to one of the major primary and caucus states with a full retinue of campaign staff, air transportation, ground transportation, security, hotels, etc., now can exceed the entire budget of an entire pre-convention presidential campaign only a few decades ago. And that does does not include TV, radio, internet and print media advertising.

The prediction that the nomination contests in both parties will be over after Super Tuesday early next February rests on the premise that one candidate in each party will win most of the delegates in those early contests that could include delegate-rich Florida, California, New York, Michigan and Illinois and other states. (There is another scenario that few seem to be considering now, i.e., that party voters in those primaries, having been subjected to a year of sound bites, gossip and insults, will remain undecided, and will split their votes among two or more of the top contenders, or they will elevate a long shot into contention.) The conventional wisdom is based, of course, on the precedents of recent nomination contests, and it is logical that a consensus candidate will emerge early. But the havoc that is overtaking this process, with its elongated calendar, might produce an ironical result, i.e., no candidate with the nomination sewed up before the party conventions.

Already the infighting is producing a tone of bickering between and about personalities, Mr. Obama taking on Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Clinton firing back, the media savaging Mr. Biden's loose lips, the tabloids highlighting Mr. Edward's extravagantly opulent new home in North Carolina while trying to champion the poor, the wags and pundits speculating whether Mr. Gore will win an Academy Award or not. With Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Murtha in the lead, the Democratic aspirants are falling over each other to bring our troops home from Iraq. Can even Democrats endure this mulishness for the next twelve months?

As for the Republicans, the top contenders do not represent the traditional GOP formula for social conservatism. Mr. McCain is a maverick, his campaign finance law is a shambles, and he's a hardliner on Iraq. Mr. Giuliani has extreme chutzpah because he asserts that his pro-gay, pro-choice views views are trumped by his tough record on crime and his conduct during and after September 11 when he was mayor of New York. Mr. Romney's Mormon faith and his charisma are too tempting for the media to pass up for a mere discussion of serious issues, and besides, he's decided, after years as a Massachusetts moderate, that he's the new conservative hero. The Republican hopefuls have become zebras without stripes. Only Mr. Gingrich won't play ball, but the gossip columnists are lying in wait for him should he suit up for the game.

What happened to the clock ticking on social security, private pensions funds, and health care? What happened to an education system in collapse? What happened to immigration policy out of control? What happened to the international security and trade system threatened as it has not ever been before?

Only Ms. Pandora may know the answer to these and any other truly important questions and issues facing America in 2008. But remember, her role is to punish mankind. Most persons didn't know or forgot that when she opened up her jar and let out all those nasty items, the myth says she left one thing, hope, inside.

Can you imagine a Lincoln, a Franklin Roosevelt, a Ronald Reagan, or for that matter, a Hubert Humphrey without hope? Is there anyone in the current crowd of candidates, Republican or Democrat, who has anything real to tell us that will make us look to the future with some optimism?

Hold on, folks, this may be bumpier than we thought.

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-This article originally appeared on Real Clear Politics on February 24th, 2007.

Nancy the Not-so-Great

Despite continuing reports that Speaker of the House-designate Nancy Pelosi intends to name Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings as chairman of the important House Intelligence Committee, I do not think she will do so.

Mr. Hastings, before winning his congressional seat, was a federal judge accused of bribery. He was acquitted of these charges in a trial, but the House of Representatives, based on these accusations, then impeached him, and the Senate removed him from office by convicting him. Both the House and Senate at that time were controlled by the Democrats.

Mr. Hastings subsequently won a Florida congressional seat, and has been acquiring seniority on the intelligence committee since then. He is not the ranking Democratic member, however. Rep. Jane Harmon of California is. Mrs. Harmon, however, does not get along with Mrs. Pelosi, and it is no secret in the Capitol that the speaker-designate does not plan to make her the committee chairman.

In a move that is still reverberating, Mrs. Pelosi endorsed Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania over Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland for House majority leader. Mr. Hoyer, like Mrs. Harmon, was an old opponent of Mrs. Pelosi from the days when the Democrats were in the minority. But when the Democratic caucus met last week, it voted by a very wide margin to make Mr. Hoyer the majority leader. Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Hoyer have had to spend most of the last week and this week making nice and trying to gloss over their former antipathy. No doubt the controversy will soon fade when the Democrats take control of the House in January, and have to get down to business.

But making Mr. Hastings the House Intelligence Committee chairman would be a controversy that is unlikely to go away any time soon. It is a public-relations nightmare for the Democrats, who will have to explain again and again why a man who was impeached and removed from office as a federal judge should become the chairman of so sensitive a committee. (Indeed, serious questions could be raised as to why he is on the committee at all.) It could even raise a minor constitutional crisis if President Bush and his administration balked at working with the chairman, citing the fact that we are currently at war with terrorists all over the world. Most Americans might sympathize with the view that only men and women of the highest integrity should have access to the nation’s most important secret intelligence.

Mrs. Pelosi’s decision is complicated by the fact that Mr. Hastings, who is black, has the support of the liberal Congressional Black Caucus, which apparently wants to make this an issue of political correctness.

The bottom line, however, is that Mrs. Pelosi’s challenge now is not to continually settle old scores, but to get her party off to productive leadership of the House. The presidential election is now the political focus of the media and the political class, and those who clamor for a Democratic president in 2008, especially if that person is to be the first female president, do not need chronic self-caused controversy and pettiness to surround the Democrats’ attempt to restore their credibility to lead the nation.

Of course, any speaker has the right to have persons working for and with her or him who are sympathetic and like-minded as much as possible. Mrs. Pelosi, however, has already been forced to face the reality of working with Mr. Hoyer. In addition to the Intelligence Committee, she must also name the other committee chairs, and if her track record so far continues, she could arrive at her swearing-in in January in a veritable quagmire of intraparty hostility so intense that she could not effectively preside over the House.

Republicans have been observing this spectacle with no small pleasure. They were decisively beaten in the midterm elections and lost many members, not to mention control of the Congress. The prospect that Democrats would botch their victory, and do it so soon, has helped Republicans through some of the trauma of their wounds. They lost many seats in traditional Republican and swing districts, and would like nothing better than to have the current Democratic takeover be the shortest in history.

I suspect that, in spite of initial emotions, the Democratic leadership does or will soon realize how very large its task is, and how vital it is to the longer-term goal of winning back the White House (which they will have held only 12 years in the past 40).

I don’t think the country voted the Democrats in so they could settle a few small scores. The country wants the Democrats to demonstrate they can take charge of our many big problems.

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-This article originally appeared in The Washington Times on November 22nd, 2006.

The Jaws of Defeat

The Democratic Party today reminds me of the hunter who carefully laid a trap for a bear, and when he came back the next day he forgot where he put it, stepped wrong and got caught in it, and then was himself eaten by the bear.

The game trophies of this year’s midterm elections and the 2008 presidential elections, both now appearing to favor the Democrats, could end up in the jaws of Democratic defeat.

There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party now underway, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008.

At the center of this has been party Chairman Howard Dean, now increasingly joined by the two other party spokesmen — Senate Minority leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

A string of bad news from the Middle East had emboldened this trio into calling for premature retreat from Iraq and thus defeat for the United States, hoping of course that the blame for the defeat would fall on President Bush and the Republican Party, which also controls both houses of Congress. Until recently, Mr. Bush remained silent to most of the criticism of the war and the repetitive allegations of deception that many Democrats have claimed got us into that war.

This combination, coupled with sudden rising gasoline prices, provoked a precipitous fall in the president’s support in the opinion polls, and only further induced the three horsemen of the Middle East apocalypse — Mr. Dean, Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi — to expound their denunciation and defeatism only louder.

We already knew that Mr. Dean was a screamer, and I warned on these pages less than a year ago that naming him chairman of the party was institutionalizing a political disaster to come. I do not doubt that Mr. Dean is sincere. This only makes his presence as the Democratic spokesman more perilous for the party’s prospects. Party liberals and moderates said he would mind his fundraising and not get into trouble. Now they may have to fire him or face losing excellent electoral opportunities this year and in 2008.

Calmer heads such as Rep. Steny Hoyer and Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (House assistant minority leader and congressional campaign chair), Sens. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman and others have tried to steer public interest away from the volatile issue of the Iraq war and toward much more fertile political ground in domestic policy issues. But none of them has the natural podia that the three apoplectic horsemen have, and a party civil war is resulting.

Now that Mr. Bush is finally acknowledging mistakes that were made, is beginning to explain his policy in Iraq and the Middle East and is asserting that our goal is victory and not stalemate, the hot air in the Dean-Reid-Pelosi balloons has brought them back to the political earth where shrill rhetoric, empty of an alternative other than defeat, is a losing argument.

The war in Iraq and the prospects for a genuine peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors are not, of course, yet resolved. There may not be, in the near future, a neat and exact conclusion to them. Wars and long-brewing conflicts are always messy, and in our present age, when the violence of war and hate are broadcast simultaneously for all to see, resolution is even harder to realize.

But there should be no ambiguity that American foreign policy today is consistent with what it has been for almost 100 years, beginning with World War I, when we emerged as a superpower, and continuing through World War II and the Cold War. Yes, we are always pursuing our self-interests, as every nation must, but uniquely in history the United States is also using its “super” power to improve the conditions of the whole world and to protect it from predators.

The predators, alas, seem always with us, whether they be the kaiser, Hitler and Mussolini, Japanese militarists, Stalin and Marxist totalitarians, Balkan thugs, Saddam Hussein or small groups of Islamic fascist terrorists.

The Democratic Party was in control of the government at the outset of the Cold War. President Truman, Hubert Humphrey, Henry “Scoop” Jackson and other Democrats then heroically led and defined the defense of the free world against totalitarian Marxism. At the end of the Cold War, however, the Democrats for the most part abandoned the fight, and allowed President Reagan to claim (rightfully) the victory. Subsequently, the Republican Party has become, for the time being, the majority party in America.

If the Democrats want to recover the majority, they cannot do it with Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. They cannot do it by advocating American defeat.

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-This article originally appeared in The Washington Times on January 2nd, 2006.

The Political Parties and the Courts

The decision about who would be named to replace retiring or deceased justices on the U.S. Supreme Court was made on Nov. 2, 2004. Prior to that, in the national elections, the candidates and political parties had been quite specific about what kind of justices they would choose if they were elected. George W. Bush went out of his way to do this, and Democrats reinforced public awareness of this by warning against this outcome. Nevertheless, a majority of voters re-elected President Bush and gave him an increased majority in the Senate, which must approve his judicial choices.

The advise-and-consent clause of the Constitution was clearly intended to be a check or review of presidential nominations. The standard is not only whether there is agreement about a particular nominee’s philosophy, but whether a nominee meets the qualifications of office.

It is true that the direction of Supreme Court decisions is now at a turning point. By returning a conservative president and a Republican Senate repeatedly to office, the voters have signaled they want and approve of this change. Public-opinion polls, for whatever they are worth, strongly reinforce this conclusion when questions about critical judicial decisions are posed to voters.

As a political centrist, I likely would not have selected Judge Samuel Alito for the court vacancy if I were president. Almost certainly, no Democratic president would have chosen him. But the choice is not mine, nor is it the Democrats’ to make. The initial negative wave from liberal interest groups, and from the most liberal senators, is predictable, but it is not necessarily helpful to their cause.

A similar campaign was intended to thwart the confirmation of now-Chief Justice John Roberts only months ago, but Justice Roberts’ character and distinction as a legal mind overwhelmed this intention, and he was easily confirmed. Judge Alito’s legal track record is larger than was Justice Roberts’, and thus more open to controversy, but barring the very unlikely revelation of some flaw in Judge Alito’s public life, his apparent intellectual distinction, character, demeanor and grasp of the law should make his confirmation a formality.

Questions about his legal philosophy may be asked. Questions about how he would decide on specific issues and cases will be appropriately rebuffed, as they have been by all recent nominees to the court made by presidents of both parties. I do not question that these specific issues and cases are what is on the mind of both sides, but I remind that this was already settled in the national election of 2004. Sen. Joseph Biden, a senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and a likely candidate for president in 2008, may raise the issue of “privacy,” and discuss it so that voters will understand how he would choose justices if he were to become president, but Mr. Alito’s views on specific subjects are not grounds for rejection by the Senate, nor for an attempt to filibuster his nomination by a minority party.

Sens. Charles Schumer, Ted Kennedy and others did suggest, before the announcement of Judge Alito’s nomination, that Mr. Bush should nominate a “mainstream, consensus” justice. This was mere rhetoric that simply covered up that they were opposed to any candidate who did not fit their judicial and political philosophy. Some senators voted against the nomination of Chief Justice Roberts. A likely larger number will vote against Judge Alito. The confirmation process is necessary, and votes against a nominee are the right of any senator, but in the hermetic Senate, there needs to be a reminder that voters are watching and making judgments of their own about senators and their political parties.

The glib, predictable and partisan criticisms of the nomination of Judge Alito made so far by the likes of Mr. Schumer and interest groups which do not represent majority opinion in the country, do not, I suspect, help the Democrats nor these interest groups to regain the presidency and control of the Senate in 2006 and beyond. The president stumbled in his choice of Harriet Miers, and was forced to replace her nomination by those who had the appropriate right to do so, the base of his own party. I may not always agree with these folks, but they supplied the votes to elect the president and his majority of the Senate.

Job one for the Democrats today is to recover the majority of voters. The spectacle of an ugly fight over Judge Alito’s nomination does not, in my opinion, work to that goal. Today, the conventional wisdom in the media is that such a titanic battle looms ahead. It may, but I predict and hope that cooler heads will assert themselves after the current spate of rhetoric and venom is exhausted, and those who rightfully would lead the Democratic Party in 2006 and 2008 will turn their attention to those issues which the voters have not yet decided.
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-This article originally appeared in The Washington Times on November 1st, 2005.

Idea Men (and Women)

DES MOINES. - What struck me most about the recent summer meeting of the nation’s governors here was the absence of the poisonous and melodramatic political rhetoric that has become an epidemic virtually every other place in America, and especially in the capital.

Not that the 30 or so governors who attended aren’t members of political parties or lack partisan instincts.

But unlike Congress, these men and women cannot depend on rhetoric or parliamentary maneuvering to do their jobs — that is, to solve the acute economic, health and social problems in their states. Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas says the folks in Washington are “polarized and paralyzed.” That was the nastiest it got. Mr. Huckabee, a Republican and incoming National Governors Association chair, and Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, the outgoing NGA chair, then proceeded to exchange warm compliments. No matter that, in three years, they might be facing each other as part of the opposing tickets for the next presidential race.

I came to Des Moines to get an early look at those governors in both parties who might be candidates for president and vice president in 2008. I have written for some time now that I think the nominees in 2008 are most likely to come from the ranks of those who face daily the nuts and bolts of the problems that face America, not from the gaggle of senators who usually are the frontrunners in the earliest stages of the campaign.

Most of the frequently named hopefuls were there. Mr. Warner, Mr. Huckabee and Govs. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, George Pataki of New York, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and host Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa. But there were also several other interesting governors here, including some female governors: Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Ruth Ann Minner of Delaware. And then there was Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana.

Mr. Schweitzer is a cowboy who speaks Arabic and a soil scientist who thinks he can solve America’s energy problems without a single barrel of foreign oil. He blasts all lobbyists, defends the principle of lowering taxes and is a Democrat. Don’t try to digest all that in a few moments. We will have to come back to him in another column.

Mrs. Minner is a great grandmother who raised her three kids by herself, ran a successful business with her second husband, served four terms in the state house, three terms as a state senator, two terms as lieutenant governor and has twice been elected governor. At the NGA meeting square-table discussion on transportation, I noticed her for the first time. Mrs. Minner, 70, did not speak until Mr. Warner, in response to a presentation, said: “We all know that trucks are what are ruining our interstate highways.” Immediately, Governor Minner’s hand went up like a schoolgirl’s. Ruth Ann? Warner warily asked. She said, “I don’t want to contradict my friend Governor Warner, but I want him and everyone else here to know that trucks do not wear out our roads.” She then explained quickly, technically and lucidly just why this was so. It turned out that the business she ran with her husband had been a trucking business. The we-know-all-about-cars-and-trucks boys in the room gasped that a great-grandmother had set them straight.

It’s so far until 2008 that I won’t even try to say more than that there are governors here who bear watching. Mr. Warner is a centrist Democrat who has worked very successfully with a Republican legislature (echoes from Texas in 2000?). He is articulate without being a wonk, and was willing in his year as NGA chair to make the reform of high-school education his principle issue. It wasn’t a flashy issue, but it was something every American parent can relate to. He says “it is time we acknowledge we’re the minority party in America, and do something about it.” He went on: “Left-right politics doesn’t work any more.” He contends that the new paradigm is “future-past politics.” In order for the Democrats to win, “We have to get to the future first. We have to re-invent ourselves. We have to be entrepreneurial.” A southern Democratic governor, Mr. Warner could represent a return to the successful Clintonian center.

So could Mr. Vilsack, who has just been elected chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, breeding ground of Bill Clinton, Joe Lieberman and Al Gore. As one component of “Minnewisowa” (the new political superstate of Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin), Mr. Vilsack offers Democrats a chance to solidify their support in this Midwest region, which has been up for grabs in the past several elections.
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-This article originally appeared in The Washington Times on July 28th, 2005.

Looking Ahead to 2006

Now that the 2004 elections are concluded, and assorted liberal media elites are finishing up their profoundly embarrassing post-election tantrums, it is time to look ahead. It is much too early to speculate about 2008, although lists of putative candidates in both parties have already emerged. (I can’t help myself, even as I criticize this practice, and insert here mention of one of my dark horse 2008 candidates, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, a centrist Democrat and former congressman, and, very importantly, a former governor.) It is not too soon to look ahead to 2006, however, and the prospects for the U.S. Senate.

With the GOP now comfortably ahead there and one-third of the Senate up again in 2006, it might be speculated that the Democrats would have an advantage then, especially with a lame duck Republican president in the White House.

But this does not seem to be the case. First of all, there are 18 seats held by Democrats up in 2006 and only 14 held by Republicans. Second, an examination of incumbents likely to run for re-election reveals that for now few of the Republicans seem vulnerable. A number of Democratic incumbents could be in trouble, however, particularly Minnesota’s Mark Dayton and perennial 2008 presidential mentionee Hillary Clinton of New York (should Rudy Giuliani decide to run against her in 2006).

Where there is much potential for change is likely to come from retiring incumbents. Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd will be 89 in 2006, and is already in obvious decline. It is difficult to imagine him standing for election again. Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii will be 83. Other Democrats who will be in their 70s include Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Dianne Feinstein of California and Paul Sarbanes of Maryland. Republicans in their 70s include Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Richard Lugar of Indiana, but as senior and powerful members in the majority, they are perhaps less likely to retire in two years. Only Sen. Conrad Burns, who will be 71, has any visible vulnerability among Republicans in 2006.

The almost zero opportunity for the Democrats to regain the control of the Senate for at least four years has already caused several Senate incumbents to consider seriously leaving the Senate to run for governor in their states. Sen. Jon Corzine, who is up in 2006, is seriously considering running for governor of New Jersey. Sen. Charles Schumer made noises about running for governor of New York, but has now apparently decided to remain in Washington.

All of this signals unpleasant times ahead for Democrats in the Senate. Other incumbents, observing the transition that former Democratic congresssman and Cabinet secretary Bill Richardson made to be a popular governor of New Mexico (and leading 2008 presidential candidate), might be tempted to go where there is much more favorable political action — to their state capitals as governor. The establishment of 40 votes as the number of senators able to maintain a filibuster was effective from 2001 to 2004 under recently defeated Minority Leader Tom Daschle, but this is not likely to fly again in the face of President Bush’s decisive re-election, the pickup of four Republican senators and GOP Majority Leader Bill Frist’s vow to stop this precedent.

New Democratic minority leader, Harry Reid, is not likely to be a strong and forceful figure who can keep his minority caucus disciplined. The party’s Senate members, as are Democrats across the nation, are divided into sharp factions, with outspoken figures on the left (led by Sens. Kennedy and Russ Feingold) and in the center right (led by Sens. Joe Lieberman and Joe Biden), and are likely to blur further the Democratic Party’s lack of central message to the country.

The desire to block judicial appointments post-2004 does not a compelling national message make.

With dynamic young senators such as Jim Talent of Missouri, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and John Thune of South Dakota and David Vitter of Lousiana; strong women such as Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Kay Bailey Hutchison, and seasoned veterans such as Mr. Frist, Lamar Alexander and John McCain; the Democrats with Mr. Biden of Delaware, Barack Obama of Illinois, Debbie Stabenau of Michigan, Mr. Carper and Mr. Lieberman seem outgunned as well as outvoted.

The action in the Democratic Party, recently concentrated in the U.S. Senate, will now almost certainly move into the states and the party’s center in its grass-roots. If it wants to revive itself in time for the 2008 elections, it can’t happen too soon.

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This article originally appeared in The Washington Times on November 18th, 2004.