Democratic Success in 2008

I think the Democrats have a real shot at winning the 2008 Presidential election.

No, really.

Paul Mirengoff wrote an article for the Weekly Standard appropriately titled, There They Go Again. Mirengoff argues,

THE DEMOCRATS' 2006 election strategy regarding the war in Iraq has begun to emerge. According to the Washington Post, key Democratic operatives and legislators "are slowly coalescing around a political plan [that] would involve setting a broad time frame for drawing down U.S. troops and blaming Bush for misleading the country into a war without a victory plan." Their aim is to "provide the party enough maneuvering room to allow Democrats to adjust their position as conditions in Iraq change." This strategy, the Post explains, is the product of fear that advocating a prompt withdrawal from Iraq would jeopardize the party's chances of succeeding in 2006. Thus, for the third straight election, mainstream Democrats intend to craft their position on matters of war and peace based on political calculation, not their view of the national interest.

And, at the top of Page 2,

The Democrats and their partners base their counter-intuitive and anti-historical strategy on the premise that our military presence fuels the terrorist insurgency. Thus, the argument goes, if we announce that we are leaving, the terrorist insurgency will magically run out of steam.

Same ol', same ol'.

As Iraq racks up success after success, the Democrats get more and more desperate. Which is just fine with me. I firmly believe in everyone's right to blindly run off the top of a cliff, especially after repeated warnings.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman is taking a real beating by his fellow Democrats as he persists in not tree-hugging the nuclear hand grenade the party is playing with. And there is where I see the glimmer of hope for the Democrats in 2008. The Democrats are on the fast track to self-destruction, if not as fatally catastrophic as the Whigs in the mid 1800s, then certainly equal to the turn of fortunes of the Republican Party with the failure of Hoover in 1932.

If the Democrats are lucky, they will blow the 2006 election, causing a party revolt after four successive national failures before the national electorate. That may not be enough time to turn the party around in time for 2008, but at least potential candidates like Lieberman will have a chance to take over the party stick shift and stop grinding the gears.

There is nothing like repeated failures to inspire revolutions.