Democrats hold edge in 2008
If Mae West’s famous adage applies to American voters, Democrats should sweep the 2008 elections — if they don’t blow it.
The adage, of course, is: “When caught between two evils, I pick the one I haven’t tried before.”
The “evil” Americans haven’t tried in a while — since 1994, in fact — is Democratic rule of both the White House and Congress.
Divided government worked reasonably well in 1995 and 1996, when Bill Clinton was president and Republicans ruled Congress. It produced a balanced budget and welfare reform, but it also produced a government shutdown and the fiasco of Clinton’s impeachment.
Americans have tried all-Republican rule for most of the Bush years — except from 2001 to 2002, when Democrats controlled the Senate — but demonstrated in the 2006 congressional elections that they were fed up with that arrangement.
The latest Gallup poll showed that, by 51 percent to 38 percent, voters prefer to see the White House go Democratic, and the likeliest Democratic nominees now beat the likeliest Republicans in head-to-head match-ups.
The warning for Democratic candidates lies in the closeness of some of those match-ups. Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) outpolls former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) by nearly 12 points, and former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) by 6 points in the latest RealClearPolitics.com average of recent surveys.
But she runs ahead of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani by just over 2 points and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) by just 3.5 points, suggesting that if Republicans have the wit to nominate a candidate with appeal to independent voters, they can retain the White House in 2008.
RealClearPolitics’ averages show Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) running ahead of Thompson by nearly 10 points, Romney by nearly 17 points and McCain by 6 points, but leading Giuliani by 1.2 points, a statistical tie.
Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) leads Giuliani by 2.4, McCain by 8 and Romney by a whopping 22.6 points. For some reason, Edwards hasn’t been matched against Thompson.
Gallup’s latest poll shows that respect for practically every institution — except the military and small business — is at record lows, including the presidency, public schools, the Supreme Court, big business, the media and even churches.
Americans are in a foul mood, as befits a country in the midst of an unpopular war. According to Gallup, public satisfaction with the country’s condition is down to 24 percent, its lowest level since 1993.
Former President Bill Clinton’s one-time pollster, Doug Schoen, thinks Democrats will lose in 2008 if they nominate a candidate who favors a “cut and run” policy in Iraq and former Vice President Al Gore’s 2000 style of populism because conservatives still outnumber liberals in America, 30 percent to 20 percent.
Conservative activist Grover Norquist, meanwhile, thinks a Republican could win in 2008 by adopting French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign model — distancing himself from Bush as Sarkozy did from former French President Jacques Chirac.
Or, if Democrats nominate a candidate perceived as too left and Republicans pick a Bushian conservative, it might attract moderate Independent New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg into the race, probably cutting into the Democrat’s appeal to independent voters.
The bottom line — at least for now — is that voters want something different from the divisiveness of the Bush era. Democrats have a glorious opportunity to return to power — if they don’t offer up divisiveness as an alternative.
Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill