>>Christopher Hitchens said last night that he hopes Kohl wins - he's within
>>two points in the latest polls. With Blair down, Clinton sort of down,
>>these Third Way folks need to take a whipping.
>>
>>Doug
>
>For God's sake why?
>
>Each defeat of the (relatively) left candidate moves the terrain of
>political engagement a bit further to the right...
Because the rightward move by the established "left" parties (kind of absurd to include the Democrats here, but you know what I mean) has been an essential part of the dominance of the right over politics - as Sir Alan Walters said, Thatcher's most lasting achievement is the transformation of the Labour Party. How long will left-of-center voters continue to let the get away with it on the lesser-of-two-evils rationale?
The move to the right is always justified in pragmatic terms, but the DLC International hasn't really been a stunning success politically. The bloom is already off the Blairite rose, the Swedish social dems have taken their worst electoral drubbing in 60 or 70 years, and Clinton's Democrats have suffered the worst losses at the state and local level in 100 years. The hell with 'em, I say.
Doug