Political winds shift for 2008 White House race
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent Thu Nov 9, 3:09 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The 2008 White House race opens in a political landscape transformed by Tuesday's election, with resurgent Democrats seeing new opportunities and wounded Republicans pointing fingers and counting casualties.
Some potential White House contenders, including Democratic Sen.
John Kerry of Massachusetts and Republican Sens. George Allen of Virginia and Bill Frist of Tennessee, suffered setbacks that likely took them out of contention.
Democrats solidified support in the Northeast and Midwest, continued their growth in the West and picked up governors' offices in battleground states like Ohio and Colorado that could give them an advantage in 2008.
"Rather than being beleaguered and lost, we have a national victory in all parts of the country and go into this two-year cycle with more momentum than we've had in 14 years," said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a centrist Democratic group.
Republicans bickered over what caused the voter anger at
President George W. Bush and Republican leadership that cost them control of Congress. Some questioned whether the party could be successful with a message crafted primarily for core conservative supporters.
"The Republican Party will have to decide whether they want to win in 2008 or whether they are willing to impale themselves on the point of doctrinaire conservatism," Republican consultant Rich Galen said.
But conservative leaders said Republican leaders in Congress needed to return to the ideas that first helped them win government control.
"If they hope to return to power in 2008, they must rediscover the conservative principles that resonated with the majority of Americans in the 1980s," said the Rev. James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family.
About a dozen candidates in each party will begin vying for the White House over the next few months. Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa became the first Democrat to formally jump into the race on Thursday, while Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record) of California kicked things off for Republicans last month.
'EMBRACE BUSH?'
Democrats will have to take advantage of their opportunity to govern or their candidates could suffer in 2008, while Republican candidates must decide whether to embrace Bush or run away from his policies, said Cal Jillson, a political analyst at Southern Methodist University in Texas.
"The Republicans have got to give some thought to how they can recapture momentum and credibility with voters again," he said. "What Democrats have to do is prove they are thoughtful and stable and moderate enough to govern."
The presumed front-runners, Democratic Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) of Arizona, raised money and piled up favors with appearances around the country but must wrestle with the growing unpopularity of the war in
Iraq.
Clinton, who won a huge re-election victory on Tuesday, voted to authorize the war and angered Democratic activists by being slow to turn against the conflict. McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, has been a staunch supporter of Bush on the Iraq war.
But McCain's popularity with independents will help him with Republicans who believe the party must broaden its appeal, Galen said. California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's easy re-election win showed what a moderate Republican can do.
"Republicans saw what happened when everybody ran to the right, and they saw what happened in California when a Republican ran to the left," Galen said.
The gaffe-plagued Senate defeat of Allen ended his presidential hopes, while the loss of Senate control for Republicans could doom Frist, the Senate Republican leader.
Kerry, beaten by Bush in the 2004 White House campaign, probably ended his hopes with what he called a "botched joke" aimed at Bush last month that appeared to belittle troops in Iraq and sparked a torrent of Republican criticism.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, a potential campaign-trail star who is still pondering a run, said on election night the results showed Americans "want a politics that is unifying as opposed to divisive." |
