Joseph Planta's Commentary - thecommentary.ca

Friday, 12 November 2004

Forget 2004, it's all about 2008

By Joseph Planta

You'll forgive the infrequency of columns filed in this space as of late. Interceding events in ones life usually take precedence and that's what I've encountered the past couple of weeks. I have tried, however to maintain a healthy regiment of interviews, and hopefully you've been listening to those. Herewith, a week and change after the fact are some post election observations.

VANCOUVER - It was late on election night, more like post-election morning, when on NBC with Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was urging Senator John Kerry to concede in Ohio, for "the good of the country." Giuliani made the point that the margin Bush had over Kerry was well over 140,000 votes, and that plurality was well enough for the Democrat to concede. Running mate John Edwards faced the cameras and supporters up in Boston, disagreeing with the projections made by NBC and Fox that the Ohio's 20 electoral votes would swing to Bush, thus end the race for electoral college votes, thus declare Bush victorious in the election. Edwards vowed to keep the fight going.

Giuliani called it sour grapes, but it had been well known prior to the election that the Kerry camp wouldn't concede as quickly as Al Gore had done in 2000, lest the troop base be demoralised so. Edwards kept his party's morale high with his declaration, as well as helped his own cause should he decide to seek the nomination again in 2008.

Long before Election Day, the campaign for 2008 was in full swing. Obvious names like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were already being touted as possible nominees in the event Kerry couldn't cut the ketchup. Obama, who won the Senate seat in Illinois handily, is a well-spoken and appealing candidate within the Democratic Party base. He hadn't been elected to the Senate yet and presidential aspirations already dogged him. Should he run, he could become the second black president, after Bill Clinton.

Now besides the Democrats, the Republicans have plans to make as well. Forget celebrating a Bush victory, as we tend to forget already that George W. Bush is already a lame duck president. He's out in four, barring scandal of course, and the Republicans will want to retain control of the political agenda by mounting strong candidates to succeed the Bush/Cheney ticket. Who then? Rudy Giuliani, whose prominence in this past campaign is best evidence that he has greater political aspirations than simply wearing the mantle of "America's mayor." Senator John McCain is also a possibility. Like Giuliani, he was highly visible, making many wags wag that a 2008 candidacy is in the works. What about Jeb Bush? Could the Bush that old 41 and his old Silver Fox had deemed to be presidential material long ago run, when Bush 43 was still dabbling in baseball, chasing skirts, or trying to snort half of Peru? My colleague Marlon Richmond thinks Arlen Specter would make a reasonable middle-of-the-road Republican nominee, but I doubt he'd make it unscathed from the expected judicial confirmation palaver. I read last week that Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is interested. That'd mean that Elizabeth Dole must be mulling over a run herself.

President Bush needn't only worry about spending his earned political capital, or currying the favour of left-of-centre historians in the quest for a legacy. His greatest legacy will have been whether he keeps the party viable, and doesn't squander the Republican's good fortune in order that they remain in the throes of power after 2008.

If a reason is needed as to why Kerry lost, the post-election edition of Newsweek had some delicious tidbits. The sigh from Kerry to a staffer, "I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot," reeks of arrogance and hubris, that it's clear why most of the country was coloured in red. The idea that one group is smarter than another, and that it was unfortunate so many people are misguided because they think, as Imus points out, that Jesus Christ is a better role model than Michael Moore, signals a grassroots rising up against the strain of liberal orthodoxy in the country, that's hand-in-hand with a complicit and all too willing also-liberal media.

The tidbits about Teresa Heinz Kerry causing consternation to her husband and the campaign is proof positive that she was a liability and explains why she was practically muzzled after the convention. Moreover, the trial balloon of offering John McCain the running mate's spot is interesting, if not exhibits the degree to which Kerry was willing to stoop to win this. The offer to McCain was made with an extraordinary proposal that the vice president's post would be expanded to include overall control of foreign policy, as well as the position of secretary of defence. When McCain questioned the offer's constitutionality, and exclaimed that Kerry was out of his mind, Kerry's natural response was to assume "Why the fuck didn't he take it? After what the Bush people did to him. . ." Again, presumptuousness and arrogance on the part of Senator Kerry.

In the end, the story is typically American. An underselling, yet sly son of a former president, who was never thought (still isn't) to have the same flair that his father had, got to savour a victory that was denied his father when he tried running for his own second term. It could be sold as a story of the underdog overcoming all odds, but that's boloney in itself. Bush was never an underdog. He didn't think it was for him, but by some miracle, it turned out suited for him. Maybe it was the Republican establishment searching for the right conduit in which to achieve power, or maybe it was, as Dubya told Bob Woodward, all God's doing.

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My colleague Babak Khorram has ably provided a précis of the life and times of Yasser Arafat, and asks some pertinent questions in his piece for The Commentary. Arafat was doubtless a fascinating figure, but nothing more. I think it was the estimable Thomas L. Friedman who said, that all Arafat did was represent the aspirations of the Palestinian people, yet who did very little in fulfilling those goals. There was so much hope that he could have effected great change. However, thanks to hubris perhaps, he was unable to achieve the supposed ends that any revolutionary envisions. He died far more comfortably than what we were led to believe he was willing.

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