Democrats Attacking From The Back

This is about the best summary of the problems facing Democrats today that I've seen in a while.

And it's from The Guardian of all places:

The real problem for the Democrats is that what is happening to "Jumpin' Joe" might soon happen to Hillary Clinton. All of the things that annoy Democrats about Liebermann annoy then about Hillary too. She is aggressively centrist. She supported the war, and still does. She cosies up to some of the odious Republicans in Congress. And she has recently, and often a little clumsily, moved defensively to the centre on election-torpedoing issues such as abortion.

In the coming months and years, this sort of behaviour is, on present form, bound to attract the ire of the Democratic base, and its blogging cheerleaders. These tooled-up adolescents want someone who can take the fight to the Republicans; to show some balls and backbone. Instead they run the risk of lumbering the Demoncrats with an unelectable donkey like Russ Feingold, a leftist Senator from Wisconsin.

Hillary Clinton has a much stronger chance of becoming America's first female president than most commentators think. Against John McCain her chances don't look great, but against anyone else the Republicans choose - Bill Frist? Mitt Romney? - she has a better than fighting chance. The irony is that Liebermann's predicament clearly shows that for Hillary the enemy is not going to be Karl Rove and the Republicans attacking from the front. It will be steely, angry and newly tooled-up malcontent Democrats attacking from the back.

Exactly.

The Howard Dean, "I hate Bush," "blame America first" wing of the Democrat party is that party's biggest liability. Pandering to those folks can ensure that Democrats raise lots and lots of money for their campaigns. Unfortunatlely, pandering to those people also tends to alienate candidates who don't necessarily hate Bush or disagree with him/Republicans on every single issue.

John Kerry's campaign is a perfect example of this. His on-the-fence, "I voted for it before I voted against it," "I'm on both sides of every issue" campaign just didn't resonate with voters. Any Democrat who gets the nomination for President in 2008 is going to have to deal with this, and it isn't going to be easy for them.

It is also exactly why I think Republicans will keep majorities in Congress later this year in November as well as hold onto the White House in 2008. Unless there are some radical shifts in the Democrat base, of course.