<p>You two are both overlooking the fundamental truth of both sports and politics: the team with the best gameplan and best execution of that gameplan on the field usually wins.</p>
<p>Senator Clinton has run the best political campaign (at this stage of a Presidential cycle) I’ve ever seen – a sentiment echoed by the pundits who have covered elections for decades. Even the best presidential campaigns (Reagan 80, Clinton 92) didn’t execute at this level until the general election.</p>
<p>She started preparing her gameplan seven years ago, has put in the time assembling a team, and has been a truly superb candidate on the stump. Beyond that, she has been relentlessly disciplined in staying on message – a message designed to address the real issues perceived by middle-class America.</p>
<p>It’s just blocking, tackling, and the timing between a QB and the receivers on offense…combined, of course, with a female demographic split in the electorate that is highly favorable to her particular campaign.</p>
<p>I-dad, even if I would agree with you with every one of your assertions, it would not change the fact that many won’t ever consider casting a vote for HRH Clinton, even if she ran against Bozo the Hyper Clown. Of course, you probably can count on the vote of Hindoo, once Obama pulls out.</p>
<p>Feel free to see her as superb candidate with a perfect gameplan; others see the very different picture of a cynical individual obssessed by power at all cost. For all I know, you may be absolutely correct, and you might be extremely happy in November 2008. AFAIK, if she is the answer, it must be to a heck of a screwy question. </p>
<p>As I said earlier, there is nothing to cheer about.</p>
<p>Of course. Nobody is predicting a 100% to 0% general election outcome. The key states in the electoral college will all be carried by 5 point margins or less. That’s the nature of the beast.</p>
<p>Your vote (in either Texas or California) will be as meaningless as mine in Massachusetts as none of those states will likely be in play in November 2008.</p>
<p>Your vote is also offset by those of us would wouldn’t vote for the Pope if he were the Republican candidate in 2008, simply on the basis that the Republicans have botched things so badly in the last seven years that they must be given a time-out on a stool in the corner with a dunce cap to think about their actions. Remember, I voted for Bush in 2004.</p>
<p>The Clintons have no use whatsoever for Howard Dean and what they consider his (mis)management of the DNC. That’s why they’ve spent the last four years building a campaign infrastructure to completely bypass the DNC – voter database, fundraising, polling, grassroots organizing, get-out-the-vote.</p>
<p>Dean’s fundraising problems support the Clintons view. While the DCCC (Van Hollen) and DSCC (Schumer) are way ahead of 2005 fundraising for the first six months, the DNC is not only way behind, but with only about $2 million cash on hand. Dean thought that he could turn the party organization into an extension of his blogosphere Presidential campaign…forgetting the mainstream base of the Democratic party, who do not do text messaging or drink lattes at Starbucks.</p>
<p>Think of it as analogous to the battle for the Republican party between the mainstream country-club Rockefeller Republicans and the fringe evangelicals. The Clintons want to compete for the middle ground in American politics and govern from the center. The Dean wing is all about ideological purity and the nonsensical belief that Democrats need to be much more liberal to compete nationally.</p>
<p>If the Demo’s win, there will be some changes made. This is fairly obvious. </p>
<p>But if the Repub’s win, What changes, if any, will be made. The Republican public will have to determine in their minds if the current policies are good for the nation and themselves, or the next changes will be better than the perceived Democratic changes. </p>
<p>The neo-cons that control the Republican Party are going to have to make a decision to either accept some changes or lose it all. A dirty campaign like the previous two campaigns will not play to the GOP moderates.</p>
<p>Nice summary, ID. And, btw, I note and appreciate–with no snark whatsoever intended–your work at expiating past mistakes. Few would do so with as much energy, fewer still have done so. Quite a few, with a great deal of embarrassment, go as far as saying “I made a mistake” and drop the subject.</p>
<p>Second fwiw, I actually agree with Dean’s 50-state strategy. It’s paying off in unlikely places like Wyoming, Nebraska, etc. And forcing the GOP to play defense in areas that it never would dream it would have to. In essence, the GOP is being to defend more territory than it can.</p>
<p>TOM, around here, significant numbers of Republicans are re-registering as independents. (The GOP is taking it in the shorts regarding voter registration vis a vis the Democrats nationwide.) It’s a party that quite literally is in danger of becoming the Angry White Men’s Party.</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>Xiggi, in 2004 Bush’s approval rating was 52 percent. He’s now mired in the mid-30’s. And there’s going to be that magical moment next September in Minneapolis–after all the tours of the Larry Craig Memorial Men’s Room–at the Republican convention when Bush appears on stage with the Republican nominee, who at that point will be welded at shoulder, elbow, hip, and knee to Bush. Bank it.</p>
<p>The Republicans are going to win the White House in November, 2008 in spite of all the dirty tricks that the corporate media will pull over the next 14 months.</p>
<p>You’re right that the Dems dirty tricks that you cite from the previous two campaigns will not play well with GOP moderates.</p>
<p>Touchdown Republicans. The White House is Republican again. Good stuff!</p>
<p>It’s a little hard for me to reconcile Dean’s 50-state strategy with his screwing his own party’s Presidential candidates and the voters in Florida and Michigan with his ham-fisted handling of this primary calendar. I want to cry everytime I read an editorial in Florida. There is surely a way to handle the situation without forcing his candidates into a lose-lose choice. Then he sits back and doesn’t even clarify the rules of his “pledge” so candidates who are making perfectly “legal” appearances in Florida are getting vilified in Iowa and NH.</p>
<p>“It’s a party [GOP] that quite literally is in danger of becoming the Angry White Men’s Party.” </p>
<p>Yep. They seem to continually rail about decreased wages because of healthcare, government intrusion, illegal immigration, and they aren’t getting any. And this has been ongoing since, Jan 20, 2001. Maybe the youngster(s) isn’t getting any too?</p>
<p>The national fate may have already been decided long before 9/11. We are only playing out the game. Perhaps some of us know about the future. If the game will be short let it be, but if the game is to be prolonged then make the final end quick.</p>
<p>“The Republicans are going to win the White House in November, 2008 in spite of all the dirty tricks that the corporate media will pull over the next 14 months.”</p>
<p>Vox–You know that isn’t true. … On the heels of an 8-year Bush trainwreck and the ongoing parade of ethical blunders by “family values” Republicans, do you really think voters are eager for more of the same? What contempt you must have for the American people! … But hold those thoughts, if they make you feel better.</p>