Wanted to put a couple thoughts together about the presidential election as a whole.
The Republicans have an opportunity to put a new face on the party and focus on their own progressive ideas, which will garner more support from the country than the ideas from the Democrats. The spectre of GW Bush will continue to haunt them in the media, but that can easily be overcome with a focus on ideas and issues. If they become too critical or hard-line, watch the media pounce.
The main uphill battle for the Republicans is eight years with a rather unpopular president and their association with him. Completely rejecting the positives of his presidency will alienate their own party more than they think, and it will hurt them if they overreact, which they might be doing with the rise of John McCain. Remember, Bush was pretty unpopular before the ’04 election, too; the American people just decided they liked Kerry even less.
The Democrats have an uphill battle of their own to fight. For the most part, their stances and positions are not popular with the majority during a presidential election. As the party as a whole has swung way liberal, they will have a hard time maintaining a moderate face. Despite Bush’s low approval rating, the Democratic Congress’ approval rating is even lower, and both front-running candidates are members of that congress. Also, the track record for Congressmen winning a presidential election is poor … we haven’t tried it yet with a Congresswoman, so let’s see how it goes.
Another thing to remember, a Democrat/liberal has not truly won a presidential election since 1976, and Jimmy Carter was such a horrible president that he doesn’t win any arguments with the American public.
What about Bill Clinton? you may ask. No, I’m not senile. I remember ’92 and ’96, but also remember there was a third candidate in both races, Ross Poroit. While Clinton won the electoral college, he didn’t win either popular votes. No one did. If we were to place Poroit on the conservative side (he was a staunch Republican until Bush, Sr. ed him off), then conservatives won both elections by popular vote. Bill Clinton may have still won those elections. We’ll never know.
The point is that independents tend to vote more conservative in presidential elections and liberal in local ones, which partially explains the Democratic takeover of both houses in ’06 (only partially … there was a lot of media-fed backlash of the Republicans as well). This will be an advantage to any Republican candidate and a disadvantage to the Democrats.
This is why Obama would be strong in a general election against most of the Republicans. He’s consistently preaching the same message, and the media will endorse that message of working for real change, giving the Democrats an advantage with the independents.
Another thing to remember: elections are not won by those who we WOULD vote for, but the ones we actually do. It matters more who actually takes the time to vote than any public perception or poll, as we saw in the Democratic primary in Nevada.
For both parties to still have no consistent front runner (except for possibly Hillary for the Democrats) is a disadvantage to them both. A party needs time to unify itself after the chaotic mess that the primary system can be. I feel that this will be another close one in the presidential race.
An important thing to keep watch over is who controls the House and Senate. It is completely possible that we could have a Democratic president and a Republican Congress, which would be interesting.
Peace.