As an Illinois Republican I have little love for the Daley clan of Chicago. However, I have always respected their political acumen. William Daley, Commerce Secretary under Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s campaign chairman in 2000, where he was much too effective for my comfort in what should have been a big Republican year, and brother of Richie the Lesser, current Mayor for Life of the Windy City, has an interesting column today in the Washington Post:
But now they face a grim political fate. On the one hand, centrist Democrats are being vilified by left-wing bloggers, pundits and partisan news outlets for not being sufficiently liberal, “true” Democrats. On the other, Republicans are pounding them for their association with a party that seems to be advancing an agenda far to the left of most voters.
The political dangers of this situation could not be clearer.
Witness the losses in New Jersey and Virginia in this year’s off-year elections. In those gubernatorial contests, the margin of victory was provided to Republicans by independents — many of whom had voted for Obama. Just one year later, they had crossed back to the Republicans by 2-to-1 margins.
Witness the drumbeat of ominous poll results. Obama’s approval rating has fallen below 49 percent overall and is even lower — 41 percent — among independents. On the question of which party is best suited to manage the economy, there has been a 30-point swing toward Republicans since November 2008, according to Ipsos. Gallup’s generic congressional ballot shows Republicans leading Democrats. There is not a hint of silver lining in these numbers. They are the quantitative expression of the swing bloc of American politics slipping away.
And, of course, witness the loss of Rep. Griffith and his fellow moderate Democrats who will retire. They are perhaps the truest canaries in the coal mine.
Despite this raft of bad news, Democrats are not doomed to return to the wilderness. The question is whether the party is prepared to listen carefully to what the American public is saying. Voters are not re-embracing conservative ideology, nor are they falling back in love with the Republican brand. If anything, the Democrats’ salvation may lie in the fact that Republicans seem even more hell-bent on allowing their radical wing to drag the party away from the center.
All that is required for the Democratic Party to recover its political footing is to acknowledge that the agenda of the party’s most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans — and, based on that recognition, to steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan. (end of column)
The Daleys are obviously sniffing the political winds and scenting a political debacle on an epic scale. This column is the beginning of an attempt by the Daleys to distance themselves from the coming route, and also spells out their recipe for how the party can come back . Chicago is closely associated with Obama; consider this the Daley beginning of divorce proceedings. If I were a political flack in the Obama White House, I would consider this to be a particularly ominous sign for what awaits politically in 2010.
No matter what, I will still always and everywhere and at anytime vote AGAINST the Democrats. Ever since the Democrat Congress cut funding off for the South Vietnamese government, thereby causing us to lose the Vietnam War, they have proven themselves to be the party of treason and death. Now today because of their actions, not only is the Catholic Church persecuted in communist Vietnam, but we have wholesale infanticide of the unborn here in the US.
The best Democrat is the defeated, muzzled and emasculated Democrat. Period.
Paul,
I raise a toast to you.
I raise a toast as well.
We need to remember the Democratic Party started the War of Northern Aggression, Jim Crow Laws, and actively supported the KKK.
They are a party of racists and still they have a KKK Grand Dragon as Senator from West Virginia.
They are aptly called the Party of Death by Archbishop Burke.
Let’s not get carried away. A lot of good men and women have been Democrats over the years. I hope for a day when the Democrat party will once again be led by statesmen like Harry Truman, who, while a fierce partisan, was also a patriot first and a Democrat second, and that on abortion the Democrat party will eventually celebrate the memory of Bob Casey, Senior, a liberal who was also an ardent defender of the unborn.
Donald,
Couldn’t help myself. What I wrote is true, but you are correct that there are many, many, good people within the Democratic Party.
I hope for the same as you do, that they return more to the principles that are more in alignment with God’s plan.
Donald,
Frankly I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, Catholic Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Patrick Leahy, Dennis Kucinich, John Kerry, et al., are the ones in charge of the party, not the good ones to whom you refer, and until the Bishops publicly deny them reception of Holy Communion, there is NO hope for the Democrat Party. This in large measure is the fault of the Bishops for getting the public so confused between the false gospel of social justice and peace at any price and the True Gospel of Life.
Harry Truman dropped not one, but two atomic bombs on the Japanese people, thus giving these United States the distinction of being the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons against their fellow human beings. Whatever virtuous policies he may have had before and after are rendered fairly irrelevant to my mind thanks to that decision.
If actions like that make a man a “statesman” worthy of praise and admiration, then I admit to not knowing the definition.
The GOP may indeed have some sort of comeback in 2010. However, it will be a hollow one that only results in helping Obama secure a second term in 2012 ala Clinton in 1996.
Anthony,
Armchair quarterbacking…
My grandfather fought in Europe and was bound for the Pacific when the bombs fell. Given the absolute fanatical resistance that the Japanese had already shown, the government’s predictions on the cost of defeating Japan through conventional means seem quite credible.
My grandmother once remarked that those who chastised America for dropping the bombs fail to understand the dangers of fascism.
I think that, had my grandfather come home from Korea, he would have agreed and I think you should do some research before you make such a bold statement. It could be that Truman did, as he believed he did, saved millions of military and civilian lives by that decision.
Gentlemen, my views on the bombings are that, although the human carnage was horrific, they were justified under the circumstances. However, we are not going to have an a-bomb debate on Christmas eve, and therefore I am closing the comments on this thread.