That's a nice post to read before I head to bed for a very sound sleep.

Enh. The economy wasn't doing that well when Clinton was re-elected. It was going ganbusters after his re-election, and a lot of it was illusory. (I know, I'm one of those dot-com people who got burned.)

Still there's much to your analysis. To add further fuel to the fire: Political scientists will tell you that wins of 51% or 52% or so are actually much more stable and long-lasting than landslide wins of 58, 59, 60 or more %. Every time a President has won by that kind of landslide, the midterms the next year were usually a disaster for his party. Why? Because holding together a coalition that keeps 60+% of the public completely on your side is impossible; you just can't win that many people's votes and not wind up disappointing a significant segment of them.

Here's Democrats' real problem: the Republicans have always had their based in the suburbs, with spots here and there in some cities. The Democrats, going all the way back to the early 1800s, had most of the cities (with a few exceptions here and there) and most of the rural areas (with exceptions here and there). They've completely lost rural America, totally and completely, and have made no significant gains in the suburbs.

And it's actually to Republicans' benefit that Bush has no incumbent Vice President to succeed him. This is actually good; if you look at history, incumbent Vice Presidents almost always lose. (Senators almost always lose when they run, too.)

If Jeb Bush is the Republican nominee then it'll be a referendum on the Bush administration. Otherwise, it's going to be completely about the two new candidates, and that's actually good. Whether the economic record is good or bad, the war record is good or bad, whatever, the Republican will be able to run as his own man (or woman) and so will the Democrat.

And historically, Republicans have always had a slight edge on winning the Presidency. They just have.

Another thing about this so-called "realignment"... If you look back on the campaigns, the Democrats tried hard to play to their extreme left (the "base") but ignored or simply paid lip-service to the middle. The Republican Campaign, in contrast to all the media hype, actually played more to the middle, and threw a few bones to the right to keep them from jumping off the deep end.

If there has been an realignment, it is with the parties themselves, with the Democrat elite pushing to their extreme liberal base, but the Republicans wooing (and winning) the middle.

If the extreme right believes that this Republican victory gives them the reins of power, they will fall just as hard as did Newt Gingrich.

Most Americans are actually pretty willing to accomodate centrist leadership. Very few of us can stomach the extremes left of the Democrats, nor the extreme right of the Republicans.

DRK

It is possible that 49% is the absolute maximum a Democrat can expect nowadays. Even with charisma, a huge media advantage, a weak opponent, apparent peace, and a decent economy, Clinton couldn't break 50% in his re-election bid. A majority of Americans wanted somebody else.

Even so, Bill Clinton may represent a high-water mark for the contemporary Democratic Party. A generation of Republican gains in House and Senate, plus governors' mansions and state assemblies, guarantees an advantage in the talent pool for decades to come.

DaveK makes an arguable point. An activist, increasingly hardcore Left runs the Democratic Party. They have alienated former allies in the middle, whom Republicans are now attracting.

In time, disaffected democrat-leaners tend to become reliable Republican voters. That's why they call it realignment.

It's a thirty-year trend, at least. Those thirty years have also seen an increasing conservative majority within the Republican Party. Conservatism has not driven new voters away; to the contrary, it has attracted them.

The two parties are not mirror images. The concept of Republican Right = Democrat Left is a false paradigm.

I think if Bush accomplishes a lot in his 2nd term and the economy is good, a Republican can be elected in 2008. But if things domestic are judged to be bad or continue to show adverse trends reflecting mediocre leadership, the "Republican Values Majority" goes up in a puff of fart gas.

We have seen the "Tax and spend" Democrats replaced by the "spend even more, tax the rich less, and borrow the difference from hostile foreigners" Republicans. Who, because Reagan borrowed and ran up Deficits to have domestic industry rebuild our military....now have it as an Article of Pure Republican Faith ...that deficits don't matter. And of course, tax cuts for the wealthy must be done regardless of the country's financial circumstances.

And this is coupled with the other Article of Republican Faith - that free trade is good even if it destroys the American economy of high skill labor and upper end services and manufactured goods. And who argue that the theory is perfect - that newly prosperous Chinese will then buy American consumer goods and eventually balance things out - and when it is pointed out that Japan never did that over 40 years - the Republican true believers say OK, that's true, but the theory would have worked if the Chinese hadn't taken over manufacture of all the goods the theory assumes would have them buying American...and balancing out free trade. The dollar's decline signals a weak, uncompetitive American economy. It is down 52% against the Euro, and Alan Greenspan said we cannot expect to maintain a 5% of GNP current account deficit and think the dollar won't continue to slide, foreign underwriting of war and tax cuts for the wealthy to continue, and inflation remain in check.

The 2008 election will focus on how 8 years of Republican stewardship of the economy has fared.

Clinton needed Perot too -- both times.

I believe that enough Perot voters would have broken for Clinton in 1996, but I don't think there's any way enough would have broken for him in 1992. That means in 1996 we would have likely had Gephardt or Gore running against Dole. Who knows?

Obviously, if things go badly for the next four years, the Democratic presidential candidate will have a shot.

But Democrat realists have reason to worry. Numbers from this election are bad enough; long-term trends are awful.

The South is now reliably Republican. It will become more so in '06. The middle of the country is Republican. The upper Midwest, a former Democratic stronghold, is trending Republican and is within a couple points of tipping permanently.

Unions are in decline. Ethnic groups which had been Democrat mainstays are eroding. The Democratic Party's get-out-the-vote apparatus has been matched or surpassed by Republicans. There are popular Republican governors in New York and California.

Et cetera.

Here's what worries the Party's realists: What if, for the next four years, things go pretty well? That's the terror that keeps them up at night.

I believe it was Kaus who noted after 2002 that we're not living in 50/50 America -- we're living in 52/48 America. And that makes all the difference.

Of course, he conveniently forgot all of this by the time this election rolled around.

(Get lost, paleoboy.)

If the Democrats want to win back any margin in '08 they will have to pray for one of three things: Disastrous times for the nation that can JUSTLY be laid at this administration's feet; Bush doing what his father did and alienating the conservative Republican base (and he's working on that right now with this 'open southern border' BS); or the DNC getting a rush of brains to the brain and constructing a positive campaign that appeals to a majority of Americans with a candidate who has credibility on fiscal conservatism, foreign affairs and the War on Terror.
The DNC has no control over the first and no ability to cause the second, but the third is something they could do- if they really wanted to. However, when I hear Democrat pundits and leadership talking I feel there really IS a failure of communication with the rest of America. Shortly after the election I saw a commentator (whose name I forget) make the statement that the DNC had failed to put together a slick package and sell it to the American people, and I thought 'Aha- there's the problem. People expect the President to be a LEADER. Those guys are still looking for a good SALESMAN.'

Lyle, not to harsh you or anything- but lots of Democrats voted for Bush this election and not a single one did so because they thought that Kerry wasn't LIBERAL enough. Bush Sr. tried be a "centrist" or liberal Republican; he got whupped by a big-eared loony and a pressed-ham-on-glass devotee form Arkansas. Conservative Republicans vote their beliefs or just plain stay home. If the RNC lets Bush or the Congressional Republican leadership transgress too far against those beliefs it'll be just too bad for the Republican Party.

Dave,

I can't understand your last paragraph.

Lyle: Sorry if I was unclear. My point is that the Republicans as a whole have nothing to gain and plenty to lose by NOT paying its debts to what you call "the extreme right" and that the risk to the Republican hopes for '06 and up isn't alienating people who only voted Republican "just for this election", it lies in alienating the people who REGULARLY vote Republican. This block of voters will simply stay home rather than voting for a cndidate whose values they oppose or whom they feel has betrayed them- go ask Bush Senior what happened when the gun-rights bloc and the fiscal conservatives dumped him in '92.
Better?