What Might Have Been
Back in the Fall of 2004, I very much hoped--for the good of the country and the world--that George W. Bush would not be re-elected. I wasn't particularly enamored of John Kerry, but I thought he would be a competent and thoughtful leader, a man who would generally pursue wise policies and surround himself with pragmatic, sober advisers, not reckless ideologues. That would certainly have been an enormous improvement over the clowns who currently man the helm.
But as the election neared, I had one nagging concern. Iraq. I thought that the invasion of Iraq had been ill-advised from the beginning and horribly mismanaged thereafter. I was worried that the die had been cast, that no matter who won the election, there was a real chance that the situation in Iraq could spiral hopelessly out of control. And if that happened, I knew that a shrieking chorus of conservative politicians and pundits would blame Kerry. It would get ugly very fast.
In his latest New Republic piece, Peter Beinart briefly reflects on what might have been:
The same of course is true of the President himself. The way I got over the depressing reality of Bush's re-election was by reminding myself that, for once in his life, Bush would have to deal with the mess he created. No one else was going to swoop in and pick up the pieces.
Imagine for a second that John Kerry had managed to pick up a few thousand more votes in Ohio and had taken over in 2005. I agree with Beinart that it is unlikely the situation in Iraq would be much better. Replacing Rumsfeld with someone competent might have marginally improved our chances of success, but it would not have changed the basic situation on the ground. The Sunni and Shia would still share a deep mutual antipathy and the insurgents and jihadists would still be hell-bent on destabilizing the country.
If Kerry had decided to stick it out, the situation would likely be much like it is today, and Republicans would blame the deteriorating conditions on Kerry's poor leadership. If he had chosen to withdraw, he would have been branded a coward and blamed for the ensuing sectarian violence. Domestically, Kerry would have faced a Republican-controlled Congress that would have blocked every one of his legislative priorities. In this alternate reality, the Republicans would now be blaming Kerry for the rising price of gasoline and hammering him from the right for not taking a more aggressive stance vis-a-vis Iran.
On the upside, there would be two new moderate justices on the Supreme Court and adults would again be in charge of the various federal agencies. That's not insignificant, but it would be but a small conciliation if the GOP were able to translate Kerry's misfortunes into electoral victory in 2006 and 2008.
In short, it's not at all clear to me that the Democratic party would be in a better position today had Kerry won the election. Perhaps I'm not giving enough credit to Kerry. Perhaps he could have salvaged the situation. But the GOP is at its best, politically speaking, when it has someone to focus all its attention on. Kerry would have been a lightning rod for Republican criticism and would have been blamed for every bad thing that happened in his term, even those things that were almost entirely the fault of his predecessor.
Maybe, just maybe, the Democratic party dodged a bullet in 2004.
But as the election neared, I had one nagging concern. Iraq. I thought that the invasion of Iraq had been ill-advised from the beginning and horribly mismanaged thereafter. I was worried that the die had been cast, that no matter who won the election, there was a real chance that the situation in Iraq could spiral hopelessly out of control. And if that happened, I knew that a shrieking chorus of conservative politicians and pundits would blame Kerry. It would get ugly very fast.
In his latest New Republic piece, Peter Beinart briefly reflects on what might have been:
In fact, if you think there is no hope in Iraq, it's
better that Bush not fire Rumsfeld. That way,
Bush supporters won't be able to pawn off blame
on people who took over too late to do any good.
Imagine, for instance, if John Kerry had won in
2004. It's unlikely Iraq would be any better
today than it is now, but it is very likely that
Republicans would be blaming Kerry for the
mess. Keeping Rumsfeld has the virtue of
clarity. Sending him off to his New Mexico
estate--with a "thanks-for-a-great-career"
pat on the back, if not a presidential medal of
freedom (L. Paul Bremer and George Tenet
both have them)--would almost be too kind.
Simply serving as secretary of defense in the
ugly days to come might be the worst
punishment of all.
The same of course is true of the President himself. The way I got over the depressing reality of Bush's re-election was by reminding myself that, for once in his life, Bush would have to deal with the mess he created. No one else was going to swoop in and pick up the pieces.
Imagine for a second that John Kerry had managed to pick up a few thousand more votes in Ohio and had taken over in 2005. I agree with Beinart that it is unlikely the situation in Iraq would be much better. Replacing Rumsfeld with someone competent might have marginally improved our chances of success, but it would not have changed the basic situation on the ground. The Sunni and Shia would still share a deep mutual antipathy and the insurgents and jihadists would still be hell-bent on destabilizing the country.
If Kerry had decided to stick it out, the situation would likely be much like it is today, and Republicans would blame the deteriorating conditions on Kerry's poor leadership. If he had chosen to withdraw, he would have been branded a coward and blamed for the ensuing sectarian violence. Domestically, Kerry would have faced a Republican-controlled Congress that would have blocked every one of his legislative priorities. In this alternate reality, the Republicans would now be blaming Kerry for the rising price of gasoline and hammering him from the right for not taking a more aggressive stance vis-a-vis Iran.
On the upside, there would be two new moderate justices on the Supreme Court and adults would again be in charge of the various federal agencies. That's not insignificant, but it would be but a small conciliation if the GOP were able to translate Kerry's misfortunes into electoral victory in 2006 and 2008.
In short, it's not at all clear to me that the Democratic party would be in a better position today had Kerry won the election. Perhaps I'm not giving enough credit to Kerry. Perhaps he could have salvaged the situation. But the GOP is at its best, politically speaking, when it has someone to focus all its attention on. Kerry would have been a lightning rod for Republican criticism and would have been blamed for every bad thing that happened in his term, even those things that were almost entirely the fault of his predecessor.
Maybe, just maybe, the Democratic party dodged a bullet in 2004.
posted by A.L. at 11:58 PM
17 Comments:
Another TNR writer, Jonathan Chait, made a similar point prior to the 2004 election.
I agreed then and I agree even more now.
Though Bush is so horrible, it's small consolation that if the election had gone the other way, things would have gotten somewhat better now and then worse in 2008. I don't know. Counterfactuals are always tricky.
I suppose there is some small comfort in the clarity of who is responsible for this mess. That truth however is just as spinable as any other. When a patient, in this case our nation, is hemorrhaging it is best to stop the blood loss as quickly as possible.
We can not afford to allow this man and his cronies to finish his full term. He must be Impeached.
The one silver lining behind a Republican dominated federal government was that there was no way they coul avoid implosion. Maybe, at the time, I was searching for some hope from the outcome, but it's clear that this is exactly what has happened. the Republicans, drunk on monopolistic power, have revelaled themselves to be as incompetant as many of us have always thought.
Now if only the democrats coul actually NOT screw this one up...
If Kerry had won the election, the trash from Katrina would be picked up and the Ninth Ward would have electricity.
Given the options, I'd choose a Kerry victory and NOLA over humiliating Bush.
What you say is largely true, sadly enough. But another possible positive had Kerry won would have been the critically-important task of mending our torn relations with other countries. We as a species have more of a future together than currently, while others wait for us to wise up and dump the Republicans towards a restoration (of sorts) of our credibility and place in the world.
I realize I am a visitor here Mr. Blogger; however, after reading your opinion piece, I had a hard time biting my keyboard.
My question is: Who cares about the Democratic Party; how about the American people?
It wasn't that Kerry didn't get enough votes to win Ohio, the 2004 election was rigged. Are you familiar with the election fraud that went on in Ohio in 2004? Kerry won Ohio.
With Kerry in office, perhaps we could focus on the issues that actually help people in their day-to-day living. Clean up elections, focus on global warming, actual negotiations with other countries, instead of thinly-veiled diplomacy with the goal of regime change.
Re "If Kerry wins...": people were saying the same things prior to the election, and this probably accounted for some of the lack of enthusiasm for Kerry, and the incumbent getting more than a few swing votes. If the election had not been so focused on Iraq, this might not have been the case. This continues to be a question, IMHO, only with respect to Iraq, and not the multitude of other things we've seen during G. W. Bush's second term.
I had these exact thoughts before and after the 2004 election, and as much as I'm enjoying Bush's ongoing humiliation, the amount and degree of additional damage he's inflicted since the election has been frightening, and of course, he could dwarf all his previous catatrophical mistakes in a single stroke by using nuclear weapons.
The real problem is that Kerry, and democrats in general, are so vulnerable to the kind of Republican PR attacks you (correctly) imagine would have occurred were he to have become president. I don't yet see a democratic candidate with the overwhelming personal magnetism to face down the Republican noise machine. It's certainly not Kerry, Edwards, Gore, Hillary, Bayh, Biden, or even Feingold. Any one of them could be a competent executive, but in this sick media-dominated environment, that's not enough to survive -- it's going to require the additional quality of overwhelming personal charisma. In the last century of American politics, only JFK and FDR have had that going for them. It's critical that the next such personality appear ... and soon. (/obsessed)
Politically, I agree with Anonymous Liberal. Republicans would have blamed Kerry for trying to clean up the mess, rather than their party for creating the mess. In the self-help world, you have to hit bottom in order to know you need to climb out of the hole. Until a large majority of the country agrees we're in a very deep, very unhealthy hole, they will not support the policies required to get us out of the hole. Today it looks like that very large majority is forming. Bush likes to say Iraq will avoid civil war because the people looked into the abyss and didn't like what they saw. That doesn't seem to be true in Iraq yet, but maybe it's true for Americans. If enough Americans have seen the bottom of the abyss, Congress will have supeona power next January and the whole country can work on climbing out of the hole. Had it happened in 2004 only half the country would have been climbing, while the other half continued to dig, and as bad as things are today, that might have been worse.
My question is: Who cares about the Democratic Party; how about the American people?
I think you missed my point. I don't care about the Democratic party in and of itself. But I think at this stage in history, the interests of the American people and the interest of the Democratic party are very much intertwined.
My point was that if Kerry won in 2004, it might have set the party up for defeat in 2006 and 2008, which would have been bad for the American people.
"Maybe, just maybe, the Democratic party dodged a bullet in 2004."
...yep. They sure did. They dodged it and left Americans to eat lead.
That is their standard practice, after all.
But don't you think, if the Dems retake at least one house of Congress in November, that they will give the GOP the convenient scapegoat it would have had in Kerry? Imagine they take the House. All we'll hear about from January '07 on is how swimmingly things were going until they took charge. Do you really trust the voters to see through the right-wing propaganda? We certainly can't count on the media to open their eyes. I agree with Sozzy: what we need is a paradigm shift, but until the country speeds over a cliff with the GOP clearly at the wheel, it ain't gonna happen.
But don't you think, if the Dems retake at least one house of Congress in November, that they will give the GOP the convenient scapegoat it would have had in Kerry?
I don't think so. It's pretty hard to blame the country's problems on one chamber of Congress. The President is much more visible and powerful. Plus, people are willing to give a party some grace period to getting things turned around when it's newly elected.
I think if the Democrats manage to take back one chamber of Congress (and with it the subpoena power) where going to see a lot of investigations over the next two years. And it won't be pretty for the GOP.
Also, 2/3 of the country already dislikes Bush. And half really dislike him. The Republicans and their media (fox, national review, etc.) will try to blame any future problems on the Democrats if they take over, but it may not matter since people have already made up their minds.
Disenchanted Dave
How "swimmingly it is going?"
LOL
We are 7 million jobs short of keeping up with new entries into the job market.
Iraq.... give me a break.
Homeland security... give me a break.
War on "terra"... give me a break.
Plamegate? NSA? Energy? Katrina?
LOL
Come on - get real!
I believe many good points are made in this discussion, but my strongest personal opinion is that Christoper C. made the best point. The American people, and the world, cannot afford to wait until 2008 for new U.S. leadership. Bush should be impeached, and he and his clown troop put out to pasture. No party has all of the answers, and no candidate is above political pandering, but Bush has gone too far.
For W's latest insult, see: http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap/p/56/04-25-2006/c8c40005af5c3dfa.html
I, like you, had hoped Kerry would have won (which he may have, with the tens of thousands of problems with the voting machines and malfeasance, but that is another story).
Granted Kerry would have inherited Bush's mess, but back then Iraq was not as heavily embroiled in violence. Kerry, once in office, would have dispensed with Rumsfeld. Kerry seems the type who would listen to the generals and follow their advice.
I also felt Kerry would have made it about the Iraqi people. It is just common sense that when people do not have security, nor electricity, sewage, water or gasoline naturally there will be unrest. I surmise those would have been more of a priority under a Kerry administration.
It is not difficult to imagine how Iraqis assess their situation. Under occupation they watch permanent military bases being built, the largest embassy in the world under construction and a green zone with all the trappings of a city complete with: movie theatres, swimming pools, beauty salons and barber shops, appliance and tech shops and yes even McDonalds and Burger Kings. It is surrounded by cement blocks and barbed wire. The Iraqi government operates from behind the US green zone so obviously their government is perceived as a puppet government. "We will step down when the Iraqis stand up" rings hollow under those circumstances.
When the war first started Iraqis needed jobs to feed their families, but businesses were importing people from India and other countries. When Bremer shut down al-Sadr's newspaper that was the straw that broke the camels back. The WH complained his newspaper incited violence. It very well may have considering the newspaper exposed Bremer's "100 Orders" which contained basically very little if any for Iraqis personal safety and even less business and financial protection. The Orders allowed foreign countries, business, and multinational companies to purchase their state-owned government businesses, infrastructure and of course their oil. In other words the orders were privatizing their assets. Moreover the Orders granted multinational and foreign owned businesses guarantees, but not Iraqis. From there it went down hill. That was when the insurgency spiked ... Iraqis were fighting for their country.
Today it feels different somehow... the sectarian violence is engineered by radical fundamentalists and private death squads (some claim they are American-supported ?). Iraqis are nationalists. They say they are Iraqis first. However they are also tribal where Sunnis and Shiites for decades have lived together, established friendships, inter-married and had little in the way of serious problems. I think the question should be asked is who benefits from a strategy that divides ... is its purpose to divide and conquer.
Although this is pure speculation, Kerry would have been more circumspect & would have prioritized the security issues. He certainly would not have approved torture nor breaking alliances. Maybe he would not have been the best president, but would he have handled the war with complete and utter incompetence as this administration.
But we will never know because Bush is president. He stubbornly adheres to his 'stay the course' "strategy." Clearly it is not working and it appears he has no intention of changing because in his mind that indicates failure. It is not failure; instead it is the sign of a wise leader.
Maybe in the next presidential election Americans will be more discerning and skeptical in choosing the next president of the United States. Until then .................... we are stuck with Bush for another 33 months!
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