Austin Bay writes about how the Democratic Party can regain a position of political relevance once again. The key is to acknowledge reality and act on the older, Harry S. Truman and Andrew Jackson and JFK, mode of Democratic foreign policy. The best, and most realistic, means of neutralizing the Republican's foreign policy advantage is to concede that it is correct, and then to make small-scale changes, such as what rewards those who help us can expect.
From there, they can take the center on fiscal policy. Let's face it, Compassionate Conservatism has been anything but conservative. What that rhetoric did do was to cut to the center and take the edge off of the cold-hearted Republican meme. In making no allowances for the slow-down in the economy, the government finds itself with a huge deficit. I don't blame Bush for the disappearance of the surplus, that had entirely been based on the idea that the economy would continue growing at the same rate over the next ten years. The intervening events have shown who foolish those types of predictions can be.
One point where I do not agree with Austin is that Hillary Clinton would be too divisive to make a viable candidate. While incumbency has its advantages, the divisiveness of George W. Bush canceled that out and then some, and yet he got re-elected. In many minds, Hillary would be running for re-election herself, all the moreso if the message gets out that former-President Clinton would have a more than passive role. Anyone who would feel they have lost ground since Clinton would be a sure thing. It would be the ultimate decision of "are you better off now than four (or eight) years ago?"
Link Via Instapundit
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