Meltdown?

Howard Goes Haywire

So, in what is old news to everyone by now, Howard Dean went off the deep end in his speech after the Iowa caucuses. I can't say that I'm really surprised by that. Dean has always appeared to me to be in the presidential race for personal aggrandizement, rather than because he has heart-felt convictions about how the country can be better. The anger, in my opinion, is calculated political drama to play to the anger felt by many on the left, which happens to work in Dean's case because he is fundamentally an angry person. He appears to get worked up frequently, with little or no provocation.

After listening to Dean's speech following the Iowa caucuses, I felt a little sorry for him. The speech was almost completely incoherent. Dean was, once again, full of anger, to the point that at the end, he let out with a scream that was perhaps supposed to come across as a kind-of war cry, but sounded like someone losing control of himself. It was, actually, rather worrisome. Even if I were a Democrat, I don't think I could possibly support Howard Dean. He strikes me as someone that doesn't have a strong handle on his own emotions, and that is not a good quality in someone who would be president of the United States.

The State of the Union Address

Contrast Howard Dean's performance last night with George Bush's tonight. The President made what I thought was a very good speech; not a great speech, but very good. Here's some of what was covered in the speech:

He told Congress he would veto any attempt to take away the prescription drug coverage recently added to Medicare, and said that government-run healthcare "is the wrong prescription." I agree totally with the President on this. I don't want my family's health care dependent on the government. Yes, it's tragic that so many people don't have health insurance, and as a country, we should figure out a way to make health care affordable and available to everyone. But Socialized medicine, a al Canada, is not the answer, in my opinion. We need to find a way to maintain our excellent health care, not lower the standard. President Bush made some concrete proposals that would, I believe, improve the situation - like allowing small businesses to band together to offer affordable health insurance to their employees. That sounds to me like an excellent idea, and I'm surprised that it hasn't already been done. I'm just uninformed about this subject, I guess.

He spoke on education quite a bit, and made proposals to increase funding for community colleges, increase education grants, and a few other things that sound pretty good, but call for more government spending. I'm not too sure that the benefits gained by these proposals are worth the cost. At least here in the state of Washington, community college is practically free as it is. I don't see that this proposal is much except a way for the President to tout his support for education.

Of course, the War on Terror and the war in Iraq were major topics. Probably the best line in the whole speech, and one I agree whole-heartedly with:

There is a difference, however, between leading a coalition of many nations, and submitting to the objections of a few. America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.

The whole "unilateral" argument that the leftists have used is just an absolute crock. Many, many countries have supported the U.S. in Iraq - the latest example being Japan sending about 1000 troops to Iraq to perform some humanitarian missions - and just because France, Germany and Russia opposed us, that doesn't mean it was a "unilateral" action. The Democratic response, by Nancy Pelosi, absolutely proved that the Dems can't be trusted on national defense. Her take:

He has pursued a go-it-alone foreign policy that leaves us isolated abroad and that steals the resources we need for education and health care here at home. The president led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence; he embraced a radical doctrine of pre-emptive war unprecedented in our history.

All of this leads me to believe that the Democrats are heading for a meltdown in November. Their leading candidates are generally uninspiring (or a bit crazy), and have taken out positions that are unpopular (repealing the tax cuts, etc.), not credible (Bush Lied!) or plain dangerous to the country (lack of support for the War on Terror). The one true moderate among the Democratic candidates, Joe Lieberman, isn't getting any support. The Democratic Party has swung so far to the left that few moderate voters are going to be able to support their candidates, while President Bush and the Republicans have captured the middle ground on almost every issue, while staying in touch with the more right-wing voters. How do I know this? Because I hear complaints about him from both the left and the right. It looks to me like he has hit the sweet spot, in terms of policies that most Americans can support, even if they don't agree 100%.

The Aftermath

So, I'm not at all surprised by this map (thanks Blogging Caesar), which shows which way the states would likely go, if the presidential election were held today.

States supporting Bush are in red; states supporting a Democrat in blue. As of today (1/21/2004) George W. Bush would win 391 electoral votes to a Democrat's 147. A Democrat would carry 11 states/districts, Bush would carry 40. Bush would win roughly 55% of the popular vote, a Democrat 44%, with 1% going elsewhere. That is a huge swing since the 2000 elections.

There is still a long time until the actual election. Once the Democrats have sorted themselves out, I expect that the numbers will tighten up. But the Democrats must get themselves together when it comes to health care, defense policy, the tax cuts, the War on Terror and the war in Iraq. If they continue to take unreasonable, unpopular, ill-conceived positions on these issues, they will be trounced, and deservedly so.

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