Comments on: Extreme Short Run Thinking

By: Patrick Tyson

Patrick Tyson — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 03:08:12 +0000

Sheridan was my kind of guy/writer/politician.

http://www.theatrehistory.com/irish/sheridan001.html

Rick—

It’s something else. By that measure, you’re almost undoubtedly right. The difference is that I don’t see any concern that they’ll have trouble raising as much money as they feel they need.

Best.

By: richard mcenroe

richard mcenroe — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 02:17:24 +0000

greeneyeshade ó And you don’t want to piss off Sheridan. Dab hand with a smallsword… used to duel his critics, IIRC…

By: Rick Ballard

Rick Ballard — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 19:13:42 +0000

Patrick, Good post. One minor quibble: "It's not about money either. The Democrats are in better financial shape than they've been in in, at the very least, decades." According to latest financial reports the Dems appear to have a net 5 mil deficit. Surely in recent decades past they had a positive balance a time or two. Or did you mean something else?

By: greeneyeshade

greeneyeshade — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 07:09:32 +0000

fwiw, ‘the school for scandal’ is sheridan, not moliere.

By: Silicon valley Jim

Silicon valley Jim — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 02:40:09 +0000

ìNow if we can just goad Boxer and Kerry into giving a few more speechesî

Thatís a presidential dream team if Iíve even seen one!

Or we could substitute, say, Maxine Waters, Robert Byrd, or Cynthia McKinney for one or both of them. Or Dennis Kucinich. Or Gavin “my city’s bankrupt and I’m in Davos” Newsom. Or . . .

By: Katherine

Katherine — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 01:18:05 +0000

ìNow if we can just goad Boxer and Kerry into giving a few more speechesî

Thatís a presidential dream team if Iíve even seen one!

By: richard mcenroe

richard mcenroe — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:56:09 +0000

Promoguy — Howie’s looking good; the state Dem chairmen just endorsed him.

Now if we can just goad Boxer and Kerry into giving a few more speeches and keep slipping the ipecac into Hillary’s chowder…

By: richard mcenroe

richard mcenroe — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:54:50 +0000

Promoguy — Howie’s looking good; the state Dem chairmen just endorsed him.

Now if we can just goad Boxer and Kerry into giving a few more speeches and keep slipping the ipecac into Hillary’s chowder…

By: Patrick Tyson

Patrick Tyson — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 00:25:09 +0000

WichitaBoy—

Thanks.

I cut a paragraph I’d written that rehashed more electoral history and traced this current period of real hostility based somewhat on party affiliation back to at least 1972.

The other side felt much the same as you now feel when Bill Clinton was President and Richard Mellon Schaife was financing all manner of groups and individuals opposed to him personally.

And while I agree that the middle is, in some respects, vast and also think it will hold, I also think there is something to other words from the same poem:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Best.

By: Assistant Village Idiot

Assistant Village Idiot — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 22:51:55 +0000

I agree that a two-party system, which of itself tends to dampen any thoughts of revolution, will continue indefinitely here. There have been influential 3rd-party runs over the past few decades, however. Both major parties are susceptible to defections, and not all split off groups pull from the extremes. John Anderson pulled votes from the middle, and Perot pulled from everywhere.

I don’t know how I’d feel about a centrist third party. Which center, after all? the foreign policy, economic, and social questions would split the party of the center as well. And it would be hard not to suspect opportunism rather than conviction of any prominent politician who tried to grab that group.

There are coming realignments around immigration and biotechnology as well. I think predictions of the death of the Dems are premature.