This seems about right based on what I've seen, after you strip the partisan b.s. away. QandO notes:
"Senator Kerry isn't the only candidate in this race who a large section of his own party would be happy to replace. While bloggers like to say that Kerry is the "Anybody But Bush" candidate, I'd argue that Bush is -- for conservatives and libertarians, anyway--the "Anybody but a Democrat" candidate."
There's lots more. Then Brain Fertilizer steps in with a persuasive explanation of why things turned out the way they did - but note his last paragraph. Somewhere, M. Simon is smiling. But is Simon right about the coming splits? Courtesy of reader Mike Daley, we have articles looking at each party coalition and its future:
- Republicans: Innocents Abroad summarizes Cesar & DiSalvo's "A New GOP?" which offers an in-depth examination of the Republican base and the party's emerging foundational message. Will that message survive 2004?
- Democrats: Mike also recommends "Democrats Adrift" by Clinton Staffer William Galston. The New Deal Coalition, he says, is dead. Judis and Teixeira's "Emerging Democratic Majority" thesis may be a beginning, but at the moment the Democrats are still stuck in performantive contraditions between incompatible interests within their base.
I'll repeat: The 60s are dead - and so are the 80s. For now, the Republicans definitely appear to be in better shape. Nevertheless, both of America's political parties are going to have to find a new way forward in a new era - and both are currently works in progress. Whether they admit it or not.
"performantive"? I think you've a good point here, but that one isn't in the dictionary (on line or hardbound).
This is interesting but unlikely, the central problem being that there's as yet no leadership on the other side. The party that should be replacing the Democrats, the Libertarians, are led by the tone-deaf Badnarik. This is a key time, true, but if the Libertarian doesn't seize the day, and soon, it is more likely that a Libertarian uprising will occur within the Democratic party itself.
Tom, sorry. Should be performative
Translates broadly as: embodiment of incompatible hopes and promises to different elements within their base. "Democrats Adrift" explains.
Dex... if there's a libertarian-leaning uprising anywhere, it's likely to be on the Right side of the aisle. The alliance between libertarians, neocons, and social conservatives has a lot of contradictions, and is largely driven by their common enemy (in different areas for each, but still the same enemy) modern liberal-left policies. Even that might not be strong enough, were it not for (a) serious external threats and (b) widespread belief among this base that large sections of the Democratic Party are either sympathetic to the sources of these threats or utterly unwilling to face them in any meaningful way.
I'll add that a schism in a system like America's is no easy feat. It would either have to be a very strong regional party (not likely), a new entity that could put a solid organization on the ground in at least 30 states and field credible candidates (difficult, remember Ross Perot?), or a strong 3rd Presidential/VP ticket coupled with major internal party dissension on one or both sides of the aisle.
Joe, why do you see the formation of a regional party as "not likely"? I would think that the "Red/Blue" split in 2000, and the impending Kerry Krash, points the way to a split in the Democratic party, where the left wing would have a virtual lock on the "BoWash corridor" and the Pacific coast south to somewhere between SF and LA; the right wing (after re-absorbing the "Reagan Democrats") would have varing degrees of strength (but enough to elect a panoply of officials, certainly) in the rest of the Cismississippi.
I had some problems with both of the articles cited. First, how can you discuss the dissolution of the New Deal coalition without mentioning the George Wallace Democrats? After 1968 they weren't welcome in the Democratic Party anymore and, like the boll weevil, were "just lookin' for a home". I'm not convinced that the Republican Party went out of its way to court them but the Democratic Party with its delegate reform measures certainly did go out of its way to dump them. They landed in the Republican Party. Just look at the Republican names in the Senate for the last 30 years. Second, in the reforms I mentioned above the Democratic Party turned distinctly left. I don't see any evidence whatsoever that either success or failure will cause the party to move more to the center. Quite the opposite. A win in November will consolidate the hold of the most left-leaning mainstream segment of the party while a loss in November will most likely cause a purge of everybody but the most left-leaning mainstream segment of the party. Neither approach sounds like a formula for long-term electoral success to me.