> 2004 is very much like 1992 in that we have a much hated Bush in the
> White House and a Democratic Party candidate whose principal selling
> point is that he is not in fact Bush himself.
What does the name "Bush" have to do with it? They could just as well have been named "Smith" and "Jones." The important thing is what the current president is doing, and what kind of gang surrounds him, not his name. Yes, Kerry doesn't have much to recommend him at this point besides not being Bush, but for some of us, that's enough. :-)
> Progressives made precisely the same compromises and vows to 'put
> pressure on Clinton' in 1990-1992 as they are making now. Here we go
> again......
I don't care what "progressives" said in 1992 (I don't even know whom you are calling "progressives" -- another vague term which doesn't give any information). My main point, which you did not respond to, is that Kerry is not charming anyone this year, as far as I can see. To the contrary, everyone is suspicious of him. Just because people vote for him in November doesn't mean that they will go along with him after that. What happens after the election, if Kerry wins, probably has more to do with whether the Republicans lose control of Congress than what "progressives" think. If the Republicans keep control, basically nothing will get done, except what Kerry is able to do by presidential decree, which is how presidents govern these days for the most part anyway. If Democrats get control of one or both Houses of Congress, it will only be by slim majorities, so they won't accomplish much. What is killing us now is the Republican possession of the White House and both wings of Congress.
The area where presidents can do the most on their own is of course foreign policy, and the way things are going now, it will be a freezing day in July before any president tries to do anything like Iraq again. In Iraq itself, I am assuming that the whole U.S. position there will have been completely wrecked by November (which, if so, will be one of the main reasons for Kerry winning), so whether or not he vows now, in May, to "stay the course" means nothing -- by fall there won't be any course for the U.S. to "stay."
So in sum, I don't see why a Kerry win would weaken the left at all. On the contrary, booting Bush out and repudiating the neo-con BS would be seen by most people as a big step forward.
As for the Democratic Party being the same beast now as it was in 1990-2, you must be looking at a different beast than I am. The center-right Democrats' candidate was obviously Lieberman, and he sank without a trace. All of the energy in the primaries was on the Dean-Edwards side, and Dean is campaigning now to keep that energy alive as an independent movement. If the Deanies can stay more or less together and exert pressure as a fairly cohesive body, they ought to be able to push the party to the left of where it was in the Clinton period.
> and don't forget to pipe in the Clintonista theme from Fleetwood Mac:
> "Don't stop, thinking about tomorrow, Don't stop, it'll soon be here,
> It'll be, better than before, Yesterday's gone, yesterday's
> gone"........
Campaign theme songs are always mindless trivia, and this one was worse than most. I always nearly upchucked when I heard it. Can anyone even remember Bush's or Gore's from 2000? I can't.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax