• US Elections

In another topic  youngmarxist has provided some links on whether McCain is likely to be the Republican candidate for President. My eyes sort of glaze over when trying to follow those issues, and basically I think it would be virtually impossible for well informed American political analysts to come up with any strong predictions at this stage - while for people who both live in other countries and who are not specialists in the field it would be even harder.



It's natural for us to look at it within the context of US foreign policy and in particular the war in Iraq. For what its worth I do think those are likely to be decisively important, but a separate topic is clearly needed to distinguish a possible conclusion from an unstated assumption.


Harry's Place is pretty useless for informed analysis about anything. In particular they were solidly backing John Kerry in the last US Presidential elections.


Some important differences between Australia and America which Australians should bear in mind  - whether vainly attempting prediction,  or just trying to follow what's happening and how it might reciprocally impact on other things:


First, the US political system fundamentally differs from the "Westminster" system in countries like Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In particular it is normal for the President and the two very powerful houses of the national legislature to be dominated by leaders from different political parties and the leadership in each house of the legislature and in the executive is far more divided and far less dominant.


Second, the electorate is far less homogeneous and both major parties are (unstable and evolving) coalitions of different regional, ethnic and economic interests rather than organizations that even pretend to be based on clear political traditions.


Third, voting is voluntary, which greatly increases the importance of both money and enthusiasm from supporters compared with Australia.



I mention those three (among many) in particular, because each is relevant to my own premature and ignorant speculations and to the question that is  more important to me,  namely that of of what the impact is likely on American foreign policy and the Iraq war.


It does seem predictable (though of course uncertain) that the Democrats will gain a majority in the House of Representatives this November and quite likely also in the Senate. This will substantially transform the political climate by providing enormous scope to harass the Executive in all sorts of ways. One effect of that is that conservative opposition to the war will become less hysterical as lots of conservative Americans have become really nervous about the lack of "checks and balances" in the current situation. It looked to me like (decisive sections of) the Democrat leadership deliberately "threw" the last elections by running John Kerry as Presidential candidate with an equivocating policy that avoided splitting their party as preferable to either supporting the Iraq war and possibly winning a Congressional majority but losing a large part of their activist base as well as the Presidential election, or opposing it and losing more heavily in both.


This left them in the happy position they are now in - where the Republicans are blamed for everything and the Democrats are not saddled with responsibility for "disasters" they had no part in.


If, as seems likely, that happy position ends in November, it must have a major impact on what happens afterwards. Quite large sections of the Democrats activist base (which is now more important for startup fund raising than it used to be due to the internet etc) are really angry and will insist on things like impeachment (despite it being obviously futile given the need for a two-thirds Senate majority and resulting only in the replacement of Bush by Cheney - or if they go far enough down the line of succession in a coup d'etat of impeachments they will eventually get to Condi).



That angry section won't be able to cut funds for the war and is likely to split off into either staying at home or supporting a third party candidate like Ralph Nader in the Presidential elections unless they can nominate an anti-war candidate as the Democrat candidate. If they succeed in nominating an anti-war candidate they would be playing much the same role as the anti-Vietnam war activists who helped elect Nixon by nominating McGovern (people forget that the "dirty tricks" engaged in by Nixon's "creep" Campaign to Re-Elect the President consisted of disrupting the campaigns of more plausible Democrat candidates in support of McGovern's anti-war campaign).



The Republicans are also sharply divided, with a large "paleo" constituency opposed to the war but are much less likely to actually split or withdraw, especially given the more recent historic experience of having elected Clinton by supporting Perot.


 A lot of Republican Congress critters are trying to distance themselves from the Bushies at the moment - eg taking demagogic anti-immigrant positions. They are likely to be less influential (perhaps decimated) after November.


Both social coalitions are deeply frayed. There are large bases of black and hispanic voters who would be inclined towards a suitable Republican candidate but are "traditionally" tied to the Democrats. I reckon if the Democrats run Hilary (which is a real possibility) the Republicans would be nuts not to run Condi.


 In fact, if their situation gets desperate enough, (which seems to be what the Bushies are currently aiming at) they may have no choice but to run Condi  - even if the Democrats don't run Hilary. That would at the very least see a lot more Democrats staying home on election day - both blacks and liberals. I found this item  very interesting. The author is clearly an intelligent analyst who appears to be advising that Condi should run as VP to either Guliani (a Republican non-starter from New York) or McCain (a light-weight with name recognition but little else).

A New York Times article by Adam Nagourney elaborates on the theme that some Democrat leaders believe they would be better off not winning a majority in Congress this November.

Looks like widespread blogosphere discussion. Google has over 18,000 hits so far.

Difficult to see how they could achieve that "better" result.

After all, the Republicans are so stupid ... aren't they?

I mean everyone knows that the Bushies are incredibly dumb.

That's why its going to be really hard to lose this November.

Isn't it?