Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The Juggling Act

I just finished reading Politico's David Paul Kuhn interview with James Carville and Mario Cuomo. The two strategists talk at length about Democrat prospects in 2008, how the left might screw it up - with emphasis on backfires like the "General Betray Us?" debacle.

The strategists leave very little to chance; discussing various Republican tickets and the subsequent challenges. About the only thing they don't discuss, in fact appear not to be thinking about at all, is who will represent their party. It's almost as though, to them it either makes no difference or is of no consequence.

And, while they pay lip service to "cautionary tales" like the MoveOn ad, they also seem unprepared to address the larger problem in their own party; the very wide split between moderates and the hard left, which seems to hold the purse strings right now.

How Democratic candidates expect to attract independent and moderate votes while continuing to pander to a loud, radical base remains a mystery. It seems to me that how the party navigates those waters will decide the election. In other words, the Democratic Party has as much to fear from itself than Republicans.

No comments: