Is the US just tired of Bush, or have conservatives had it?

[babylonsister]

Is the US just tired of Bush, or have conservatives had it?

The next presidential election may mark the end of an era if voters associate all Republicans with the present leaders

Michael Tomasky in Washington
Monday October 22, 2007
The Guardian

Like criminal trials or major football matches or fights within marriages, presidential election contests in America are about both stated and unstated matters. The stated matters are the ones the candidates talk about and run on: the mess in Iraq, the terrorist threat, the healthcare crisis and so on.

The unstated questions are the ones candidates are loth to discuss themselves but that aren't too far from the surface and are deeply felt by the partisans on both sides. These have to do with the "mood" of the broader public at election time and with what an electoral outcome "says" about large historical shifts. For example, the British election of 1945 confirmed a desire among voters for social reform so profound that it swept aside a great national hero. Similarly - except in the other direction ideologically - American voters made a statement in 1980 when they voted Ronald Reagan into the White House by a landslide proportion, signalling that one era was over and another one dawning.

Will 2008 be such a year? The question is on the minds and tongues of many in Washington. Liberals hope that the answer is yes, while conservatives fear that it is (and conservatives seem more uniformly pessimistic than liberals seem optimistic).

But how might we know that 2008 is such a year? Let me offer what I think is the most important undercurrent question of next year's election: have Americans tired of conservatism, or have they merely tired of corrupt and incompetent conservatism?

more...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2196491,00.html

[The Magistrate]

1. Both, Ma'am

"The mills of God grind slow, but exceedingly fine."

[babylonsister]

2. I know I'm pretty damned tired of him. I hope everyone is. nt

[leftofthedial]

3. Americans are ill-informed, intellectually lazy, not particularly bright,

and endlessly gullible. They have the attention spans of a puppy in a room full of squeaky toys.

They could well forget how much they hate bush before 2008, much less 2012.

The bush clusterfuck will overwhelm the public's ability to focus. Then a couple of months of RW spin and propaganda and the public will grab their pitchforks, light their torches and lumber off in search of whatever liberal monster Fox tells them to chase--probably Hillary or national health care.

[Vickers]

5. You are exactly right. Ronnie Raygun was voted in a scant 6 years

after Tricky Dick resigned in disgrace.

[ericgtr]

4. I definitely think the US is tired of him

I also don't see how any Republican candidate will win while supporting the war, IMO it's political suicide. Don't these people even remotely give a rats ass about what the people want? The answer is no and they will not get elected because of it.

[AlinPA]

6. The right wing "Christians" will be getting fired up shortly and will restart their

hate campaign. They are alive and well. It looks like Huckabee and Romney will lead their hate campaign- a bible in one hand a a flag in the other.

[slick8790]

7. Bush.

I'd argue there's almost been a rebirth of the paleoconservative movement recently, a la Barry Goldwater. I think a lot of people who are conservative for one reason or another, and have become dissatisfied with where neoconservativism has gotten them. this is why i think people like ron paul are getting such enthusiastic, albeit small, support.