Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (16142)	10/4/2007 1:56:38 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 224729

Democrats grapple with the fear factor By: David Paul Kuhn Oct 3, 2007 For Democrats, things rarely get much better than this. In 2008, they’ll be running to succeed an unpopular incumbent, against an opposition that has rarely been more disorganized or dispirited. Polls show a Democratic advantage on major issues nearly across the board. Amid all these favorable signs, it’s only natural that some of the party’s top strategists would be pondering the same question: Wonder how we’ll screw it up this time? “We are a little bit of a shellshocked political party. We somehow or another always figure out a way to blow it,” Democratic strategist James Carville said. “Democrats have to talk their way out of winning.” Carville was not exactly serious but not exactly kidding. Even as all the trends seem to be breaking their way, Democrats still sound a bit like a boy who has been beaten up too many times on the playground: certain another punch is coming. It’s more than paranoia. After all, many of the formulas political scientists use to predict elections suggested Democrats would take the White House in 2000 and 2004. And it remains a fact that the party — even during two terms of Bill Clinton — has not broken 50 percent of the vote in a presidential election in more than 30 years, and it has done it only twice in the past 60 years. Plus, there’s plenty of precedent for a seemingly insurmountable lead (remember President Michael Dukakis from the summer of 1988?) to evaporate in the blink of an eye. “No matter how the stars are aligned now, the stars keep moving,” said Mario Cuomo, the former New York governor and almost presidential candidate. “Republicans have just gotten very good at this,” Carville said of presidential politics. “Somehow or another, in the last three elections, they’ve tended to close a little better than we have. No. 3 is that they have a more disciplined and effective echo chamber.”