Ever get the feeling the Republican Party as a whole is not expecting to win next year’s presidental elections, nor much wanting to? When your strongest candidates are Mitt Romney, Rudy Guliani and Fred Thompson (who hasn’t even declared its candidacy yet), outsiders all, it doesn’t show any great enthusiasm for the job… Where are the
true Republican heavyweights? Where are the Bushes?
Waiting for somebody else to clean up the mess Georgey made is my bet. It won’t be fun to be the next president, as all the chickens come to roost: the War on Iraq, the War on Terror, the dire economic situation domestically, the loss of power internationally. Far better to let a Democratic president clean up the mess and take the blame for everything. Then, in 2012 or 2016, depending on how bad things get, enter a brand new Republican superstar, unsullied by any of the current nastiness, but funnily enough surrounded by the same sort of people who now surround Bush and who earlier surrounded Reagan and Nixon. Karl Rove has already taken a leave of absence in preparation…
Meanwhile, in the Democratic camp, the Clintons and Obamas see that their wait it out strategy is working. Instead of taking a firm oppositional stance against Bush and his wars, like their base wanted, they thought they could have their cake and eat it. Get Bush to do their dirty work for them, invading Iraq (Bill Clinton was fond of bombing the place himself and Hilary hasn’t exactly been a dove herself) and getting all those nasty illiberal policies through they’re supposed to oppose as Democrats but wouldn’t mind using themselves once president, while providing a handy enemy for the peons to hate. They’ll get back into power in 2008, make some sops at home, more or less continue the wars only smarter and work on ways to win the important elections, in 2012 or 16, once Iraq has receded in the background.
An arrangment then that suits everybody, apart from the voters…