Yes, it would be strange for Democrats to root against their own party this fall; and there are plenty of reasons a Democratic victory this year could bolster the party heading into 2008. But in one crucial respect a Republican victory this November could dampen the odds that a Republican will succeed Bush in the White House. Consider that the GOP has three potential candidates for 2008--Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Condoleezza Rice--with 50-percent-plus approval ratings from Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike. The Democrats have none. An opponent with these kinds of numbers would be more or less impossible to defeat. But if Republicans maintain their majorities, it becomes far more likely that Democrats will not have to face one of these candidates--or if they do, that the GOP candidate's moderate credentials, and hence his or her crossover appeal, will have been severely damaged before the general election.
Condoleezza Rice and Rudy Giuliani don't have a chance in hell of getting the Republican nomination. Conservatives aren't going to vote for a black or a New York City candidate who is pro-choice. Rice hasn't even showed signs that she is running. How Forsyth views Rice as a potential "electoral savior" for a party intolerant of civil rights is unexplained. The Christian Right has a deep distrust of McCain. They won't forgot his "don't pander to them" comments in 2000.
``Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell on the right,'' McCain, who has appealed to independent and Democratic voters, said in speech to about 1,500 people at Cox High School.
McCain is doing a lot of pandering to Falwell now. It may be too little too late.
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