Saturday, November 13, 2004

Arianna blames Carville

In this post-election essay, Arianna Huffington blames Kerry's campaign team for the loss. They failed, she contends, to keep the message on the Iraq war and national security and terrorism, instead adopting the nineties mantra that "it's the economy, stupid" and therefore forfeiting the advantage Kerry was given with the ongoing negative developments in the Middle East, including the absence of WMD in Iraq, the constant death of troops and waste of money, and so forth.

While I agree with her analysis, I believe the list of reasons for Kerry's loss is much longer. I've laid them out in a previous blog--from media bias to weak-kneed politicking to baseline fear-mongering by Bush/Cheney to Rove genius--and have come to conclude that the Republicans' sway over national politics in America will obtain for a decade at least. I'm not alone in this assessment, but unlike those who don't like this prospect and argue for mere cosmetic or personnel changes in Democratic politics, I welcome this time, because it will take that long for the second party--perhaps the Democrats, perhaps another party--to define and deliver a truly democratic platform, one that embraces the populist principles that Democrats once proudly proclaimed and advanced.

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