James Carville and Paul Begala, speaking on Crossfire as the election results showed the Rs winning across the board, said the problem with the Ds was that they
had accomodated George W. too much, and that the party would have done better had it been more confrontational.
I think they’re wrong.
The Rs won because they received more of the centerist, independent voters (I may or may not expound on why they did this later). Messrs. Carville and Begala
suggest going further left as a cure? On the contrary, the Dems should try to go more to the center, especially if the Rs misinterpret the election result as a
mandate for the far right. If the Rs go off the deep right end, and the Ds reclaim the middle, you could see a complete swing the other way in 2004. If both the
Rs and the Ds head away from the middle, we could see another indpendent movement
?
? la Perot ’92 emrge.