I was thinking of titling this post with Virginia Postrel’s pithy The Future and Its Enemies, but didn’t want to be accused of excessive snark. [Who you?-ed] But whatever the title, according to a recent poll, things are looking bleaker than they have for a long time for the Democratic Party.
Conducted by the party-affiliated Democracy Corps, the poll indicated 43 percent of voters favored the Republican Party, while 38 percent had positive feelings about Democrats.
“Republicans weakened in this poll … but it shows Democrats weakening more,” said Stanley Greenberg, who served as President Clinton’s pollster.
Greenberg told the Christian Science Monitor he attributes the slippage to voters’ perceptions that Democrats have “no core set of convictions or point of view.”
Mr. Greenberg couldn’t be more right, as far as I’m concerned. I haven’t heard a single original thought out of the Democratic Party in what feels like years now. All the serious debate seems to be taking place within the Republican Party between their traditional conservative, South Park wings, etc.
I was reminded of this last night while watching one of the Dems best and brightest, David Corn, on the Neil Cavuto Show. The subject was Iraq and the media. Corn, clearly a smart guy and an excellent writer, had nothing of interest to say. He seemed like a sad sack trapped in a hole of someone else’s making. What a position for a “liberal” to be in – hoping to be vindicated by the failure of democracy in Iraq (and the consequent success of psychotic religious misogynists and homophobes!). Corn denied this, of course, but where else is he and the Democratic Party? They made a fatal mistake by gainsaying the war in Iraq and putting themselves on the wrong side of history. A serious course correction would be their only salvation but they seem unable to make it for psychological, quasi-intellectual and, alas, economic (Soros) reasons. They are mired in what in my Marxist days we would have called “false consciousness.”
And speaking of false consciousness, in the same poll article linked above, James Carville engages in what the French call simplisme.
Fellow strategist James Carville said the war in Iraq and rising fuel prices are affecting party loyalty as well.
“The country is just in a foul mood,” Carville said. He noted within the same poll, 56 percent of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Back in the day, this is the man who told us “It’s the economy, stupid.” Well, James, time’s have changed. Nowadays “It’s the values, stupid.”
(poll via MM)
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