Why the Democrats are doomed

I've always disliked Ann Coulter, and her latest excuse for a column has done nothing to change my opinion of her:

Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazoned with the "F-word" are my opponents.

Oh... my... God. This stuff is pitiful. She is like a conservative Maureen Dowd.

Of course, Dowd writes her terrible columns from a liberal perspective and somehow maintains a column in a paper that was once influential.

Coulter's shit just occasionally bobs to the surface on the internet, where it can be skimmed off and disposed of.

Coulter is from the dangerously stupid part of the Republican Party, a group which has now been marginalized. These are the people who believe that Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster murdered, or that Bill ordered Ron Brown's plane to be shot down in the Balkans. They invent stories of Hillary's lesbian orgies at the White House, and seethe with ridiculous accusations whenever they see John Kerry's face.

I personally believe that they got Bill Clinton re-elected in 1996: The Rush Limbaugh nutjobs made Clinton's people seem moderate and reasonable (Of course, Bob Dole's electric personality didn't help matters).

Coulter has no ideas, just insults. But nobody really pays attention to Coulter, but they are paying attention to Democrats right now. And all they are seeing are insults directed at Bush. No new ideas. No bold vision.

Which brings me to my point:

The first person to start lobbing insults is the guy who just ran out of ideas.

Right now, the seething anger is mostly on the Democratic side, and if it is handled correctly by the Republicans, it will be their undoing.

Insults are no subsititute for ideas. When Democrats like Kerry are at their best, they are mind-numbingly boring, mouthing focus-group tested, simple truisms and managing to stay below radar. When they are at their worst, they are evasive and unwilling to say what they really mean, hoping that the party faithful will take home the "right" messages without forcing the candidate to actually go on record.

Unfortunately for Kerry, the Republicans have him on record saying many things that conflict. From a Democratic perspective, this will be painfully clear, very soon.

This convention will be viewed as a huge mistake for the Democrats. They are wheeling out fossils who weren't allowed to speak at conventions past (Carter, Kennedy) because a stench of failure seemed to hover over them. And to make matters worse, they have sprinkled in a number of new oddities (Kucinich, Sharpton and Dean) who will do nothing but lose them votes in Middle America and in the battleground states.

They are in very deep trouble, and they do not realize it.

This is most of America's first good look at what John Kerry stands for.

I don't do predictions very well, and I realize that events (like a terrorist attack) can change everything.

But I can't resist:

The Democrats are going to get destroyed in November, and this convention will be viewed as the point at which their decline started. They are brash, over-confident and insulting. They have nothing in the way of new ideas, just a lot of me-too things on terrorism and more spending on education and health (where overspending by the government is the problem). Their message on Iraq is completely incoherent.

Bush will win in November by 60 electoral votes, and by 8% in the popular vote. Not a landslide, but a convincing win nonetheless. The Republicans will gain 2 seats in the Senate and maintain control of the House.

The Democrats will spend the next four years wondering how they got things so wrong.


- posted by total @ 7/28/2004 06:30:00 AM .