Sunday, November 10, 2002

Diagnosing the Democrats' Defeat

Peggy Noonan's is one of the better assessments of the Democrats' defeat. Noonan argues simply that the Democrats are bereft of purpose. Worse off than the GOP was in 1992 without communism, its familiar enemy which it defeated, the Democrats seem to have outlived the usefulness of their New Deal and do not now have a raison d'etre. The unattractive alternatives for the Democrats are trying to reclaim the center in a "me-too-ism [of] gutless acquiescence" or tacking to the left by trying to extend their increasingly unpopular wealth redistribution policies. Noonan boldly identifies Hillary Clinton as the possible future of the party. Clinton is a tough partisan who hates the other side but has the discipline not to show it often. She is a proponent of liberalism that "evades getting tagged as leftism."

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