Hope

In November, the editor of Governing Magazine, Alan Ehrenhalt, addressed the American Enterprise Institute. His politics are not known hereabouts, but since the Institute is a right wing think tank, we presume he's no leftist. According to a short piece in American Prospect, he told the tankers that the upsurge of the conservative movement since 1968 has peaked, although this is obscured by its dominance in Washington and its now-establishment institutions. He told them that Democrats have become "a party of minorities and people to listen to NPR, but that's not far from a majority." He warned the right wingers against the arrogance he saw in them. "To this the assembled conspirators replied with, well, arrogance," the Prospect said. They rejected his analysis.

The right believes it has won the battle of ideas, but it's possible to detect two problems they have: a dearth of new ideas, and a new-found ability of the people they attack to effectively counter their charges.

You can see hints of this in the 2004 Democratic primary campaign. In terms of ideas and articulation of those ideas, this year's field is superior.
John Kerry is very specific about the Bush foreign policy, what he will do in domestic policy, and who the enemies are. He uses rhetoric that would have been radical even four years ago, but it has the same power and directness as the conservative rhetoric of the 1980s. (He speaks of "Benedict Arnold corporations" who send their jobs overseas.) But he keeps rhetoric more familiar to Democrats (instead of "people working for the economy, we need an economy that works for people.")

Key to all this is understanding the appeal of the attacks and quickly repelling them. When George Bush I and his minions used racist code to attack Michael Dukakis, he didn't know how to respond. But last night Howard Dean pointed out that George Bush II used the word "quotas" several times in a single statement, identified this as a racist code word, and said on the basis of playing the race card alone, Bush should be defeated.

Contrast this with the rhetoric coming from the Republicans and the Rabid Right. They got plenty of air time thanks to their media minions repeating the charge against Kerry that he has a more liberal voting record that Teddy Kennedy, which makes Kennedy the conservative Senator from Massachusetts. But other reporters expressed doubts that this old "liberal" tag has the power it once did. That's probably partly because it is so old that it's become meaningless, and partly because it's hard to know what liberal means when the conservative government runs up the highest deficit in history. (And Teddy Kennedy doesn't scare people anymore. He's become a more universally cherished figure.)

So far the best that the Rabid Right can do in criticizing Kerry---which means attempting to demonize Kerry---is to say that he "looks French" (I'm not kidding) and that he went to school in England. The baseness of this is obvious, as is the utter poverty of ideas. Yet in their arrogance they think this stuff will still work.

Maybe it still will, but there are signs it won't. Another good sign besides the clarity of the candidates is the attitude of Democratic voters so far. They aren't floundering around, expressing general dissatisfaction with the field, or choosing on either strict ideological purity or superficial whim. The polls in Iowa and New Hampshire confirm that they like all the candidates but are voting for the one they believe is strongest in being able to defeat Bush: "electability."

Also, the candidates are so close on the issues that final unity should not be difficult to achieve, at least on that basis. If Kerry's big win in New Hampshire (YOU READ IT HERE FIRST!) is confirmed with three or more primary victories on February 3 (including Missouri), it is likely that the field will significantly narrow. They'll probably all stay in until February 5, but after that when there is no more money to go on, even winners in one state or another will drop out or scale back.

All that the Democratic candidate has to do is to win what Al Gore won and just another state or two. (Like Florida.) There is an additional factor: there will be no "Gush or Bore" "you can't tell the difference" between the candidates rhetoric. It's unlikely there will be candidates in most states either from the Green party or right-of-Bush parties. The Florida ballot should be much less complicated.

Defeating Bush will take skill, persistence and vigilance. There is no manipulation the Bushies aren't capable of, include interfering with voting and voting rights, and pulling some phony national security or terrorism-related surprise. But everyone has seen it all before, and that may be the key.