Iowa proves how conservatives will try to make him miserable

One liberal’s advice to the Right would be to learn from 2000.

It looked to me that the conservatives hated Clinton so badly they would have done anything to beat Gore. Anything. There was one powerfully unified, frightened party.

Bush took advantage of that, came out early and raised a bunch of money. He also took a middle-of-the-road political stance, with a wink to the right. He avoided sounding harsh on sensitive issues, while sending back-channel messages to the right. He looked as if he had a chance, and people climbed on.

The right-wing seemed to accept this. Their attitude seemed to be -

“He’s really ours, but he has to get elected, doesn’t matter what he says, he’s ours. Let him go. He’ll come back, but right now he’s got to say some things.”

Even so, with a lot of money, an early start and a powerfully unified, energized Republican Party, it was close. We all have our opinions on that election, but I’ve never seen anyone say it WASN’T close.

And now, if the Right holds his feet to the fire on every single issue, it may make it very difficult. Could make for a divided party, could expose the true agenda to more centrist Ds who may have voted for him otherwise.

The approval ratings are high, I know. And the Iraq stuff may be timed to kick in just before the election, so there is a traditional knee-jerk supportive reaction.

And I think that in a less active wartime a significant number of people respond positively to the “Do you support the President in his war on terrorism?” stuff indicating they support their country and they support the people protecting it more than they may support the personage of this president.

May be afraid any negative reaction might be interpreted as not supporting the country. Would support any president.

That’s not an opinion I’d protect to the death, necessarily, but there are many, many situations in which I’d support the presidency while still working to see a particular president gone. Have done it.

Arf