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Democrat destined to win in 2008?

Conservative media don't support campaigns of Clinton, Obama, Edwards; voters are gullible, easily manipulated
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October 3rd, 2007 issue

By Creag Hayes
U.S. President George W. Bush has so damaged his Republican Party — especially with the disastrous Iraq War — that any of the leading Democratic candidates for president in 2008 is certain to win, no matter who gets nominated.
That was the opinion of one of the participants at a discussion I attended in Prague a couple of months ago.
As is typically the case, this was a group of well-informed, articulate and thoughtful people. This opinion, it seemed, met with general acceptance.
Similarly, the stateside press of late often carries an odd yet agreeable corollary when it describes the Republican candidates as “lackluster” or “uninspiring.”  
If you’ve paid any attention to this already too long 2008 U.S. presidential primary campaign, surely you’ve heard this said, even by conservative commentators.
For those who hope to see the United States move in a new, different, more constructive, less combative, rational, self-interested — the adjective is yours to choose — direction, there is more good news. You hear pundits, again even among conservatives, who speculate that conservative voters, especially religious fundamental types, are confused and discouraged; that Bush’s policies have left them feeling so used and disappointed that they will not be as supportive of conservative candidates as they had been previously.  Many, they say, may not even vote!
Can there really be a tooth fairy?
This all seems too good to be true. U.S. public opinion is gullible and easily steered.  
In the news recently, we learned that the U.S. military surge in Iraq has been so successful that all those defeatist, cut-and-run types, i.e. Democrats, must now concede that the Iraq War — some call it an occupation — is starting to show results.
Bush and General David Petraeus, the military man in charge of Iraq, have both suggested that the surge has been so effective it may soon be possible to reduce the troop level. (Would that be an “unsurge”?)  
No one asks how that differs from the defeatist, cut-and-run policy war critics advocate.  How it differs, if you ask me, is that it’s done more slowly by our U.S. troops. Coincidentally, that might fit nicely with the 2008 election cycle.
Let’s go back to the earlier presumption — that the 2008 Democratic nominee is certain to win, no matter who the Republicans nominate.
Surely no one is suggesting that FOX News and Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, the Clear Media Radio Network and the various other conservative tilted media conglomerates together with whatever is left of the fundamental religious groups are going to support — let’s use the names — Clinton, Obama or Edwards?
What, in reverse order of current poll support, do we know about these three?
John Edwards is the self-made pretty boy who spends too much on haircuts.
Barack Obama is the Harvard-educated, inexperienced black-but-not-really-black (Rush Limbaugh first rang this slur) Senator popular with ultra-liberals and young urbanites.  These are media thumbnail descriptions, not mine.
And then there is the front-runner, Hillary Clinton.
Leading both Obama and Edwards by double-digit poll results, Hillary has been repeatedly mentioned — especially by conservative commentators, even Bush — as the most probable Democratic nominee.  
Newt Gingrich singled her out as his favorite more than two years ago, well before she had confirmed she was running.
Yet deeper in the polling numbers we learn that Hillary has what they call “negative baggage” (that is an apparent reference to her husband); that women, especially professional women, tend to dislike her; and that many people find her divisive.
Maybe even more troublesome, in one-on-one match-ups of the prospective Democratic and Republican nominees, Edwards — remember, he’s in third place among the Democrats, never breaking 15 percent — appears stronger than Hillary, defeating Republicans that Clinton and Obama lose to. Quite strange.  
Sure, poll results and public opinion mean little this early on.  
But, given the power of conservative media in the United States and the elected officials they support, not to mention their skill in managing the vote-counting process, doubts creep in when predicting that a Democrat is certain to occupy the White House in 2008.
— Creag Hayes is the local chairman of Democrats Abroad, a nonprofit political interest group, and a long-time resident of Prague. A Republicans Abroad column is slated to run next week.
Absentee voter registration help online:  
Any U.S. citizen living outside the United States is eligible to register and vote by absentee ballot. With the primary election season approaching, this can easily be done online.  
Democrats Abroad provides an online tool for doing this — see www.votefromabroad.org. The online wizard provides registration form printouts, automated registration addressing and late ballot printing.
Your privacy is assured; no personal information will be retained unless you specifically authorize it. 


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