Friday, October 19, 2007

The Right's Best Hope Is -- The Far Left?

Instead of sticking to my boring centrist stance let me project our past and upcoming presidential elections from the Right's standpoint.

The credit for our GWB's 2000 presidential victory goes largely to Al Gore himself. He gave the election to us by distancing himself from that Bill Clinton. Of course Ralph Nader, Jeb Bush's operatives in Florida and our Republican appointed Supreme Court gave some crucial support.

But in 2004 it was Howard Dean and his enthusiastic supporters who really helped our cause by forcing Kerry to veer sharply left to counter Dean in order to win the Democratic primaries. Thereafter Kerry never recovered enough ground to win the face-off with GWB. Our Karl Rove of course brilliantly helped in painting Kerry as a flip-flopper when he tried to return to the center.

The same dynamic may work this time around. Polls may not look too bright for our 2008 hopefuls, but it's still early. Democratic polls show Hillary pulling ahead of her rivals, but the General Election polls show her in a statistical dead heat with our Rudy Giuliani. Our far left and liberal friends may again come to our aid. They already see Hillary as too much of a centrist, and our labelling her as "calculating" has influenced many impressionable women and some men.

The New York Times and Jon Stewart's Daily Show are also helping us by regularly sniping at her and promoting Barack Obama. Just look at NYT's Maureen Dowd who is one of Hillary's fiercest critics and an Obama loyalist. Among her numerous efforts here's her nice attack of September 30 which cleverly lumps Hillary with GWB, and another piece of October 10. Even Paul Krugman who's been a thorn in our side has been undermining Hillary - the man has his uses.

Obama for his part was brilliant on the Jay Leno show on October 17, lobbing carefully rehearsed barbs while making them sound spontaneous. And they think Hillary is calculating! For example when asked if Hillary had taken an insurmountable lead he correctly pointed to how the Iowa polls outcome can change everything, then added "This is not a first time a leader has declared 'Mission Accomplished' and been proven wrong." In one stroke he portrayed Hillary as overconfident and lumped her with GWB. The enthusiastic young Leno audience exploded in laughter and applause.

Of course, Hillary is actually cautious and even paranoid about the primaries, and has never said or implied that she's sure about being nominated. But Obama has learned from our Karl Rowe and Dick Cheney - don't worry too much about being factual, and you can get a lot of mileage from inaccurate implications. Useful guy, this Obama. He can either weaken Hillary so Rudy (or maybe another GOP nominee) can beat her, or if he actually secures the Democratic nomination he'll be so much easier to beat. But Shhhhh, make sure to call him a tougher opponent to encourage Democrats to vote for him.

So take heart, Republicans. An enemy's enemy is a friend. Have faith, including in the liberal and far left factions. After all, they helped the American people choose our current President a second time. Why not this time around as well?