I agree that the Democratic Party has its problems. The GOP may even hold its own in this year's mid-term election. What happened in '94 was a final repudiation of LBJ's Great Society programs, and that conservative fiscal mindset will remain with us for a while.
Biden, Leahy, Daschle, Kennedy and Gephardt are all getting up in years and in time will give way to Bayh, Edwards, Kerry et al., but the process will need to run its course.
Having said that, there's no guarantee that GWB's popularity will translate into gains by GOP Senate and House candidates nine months from now. GWB's popularity is buoyed by the events of 9-11 and our campaign in Afghanistan, not by his handling of domestic issues.
At some point the economy will move to the front burner, and we have yet to see how much the Enron meltdown will hurt the GOP. Also, there will be other big businesses that will go belly-up. Yes, you can argue that Enron began under Clinton's watch, but the fact remains that the sins of Big Business are much more closely tied to the GOP than the opposition party. Enron is the GOP's tar baby, like it or not. Now it's pretty much a business scandal, but over time will become a political scandal. That's the way politics in this country works. |
