George Bush cannot be beaten unless the Democrat nominee attacks Bush's foreign policy from the right, according to Walter Russell Meade. Another way to describe the situation is to say this is the forging of a new bipartisan consensus on foreign policy. Neutralizing Bush's, Republican's strength on foreign policy requires Democrats to outflank Republicans on this issue in order to get elected to the Presidency and the Democrat party will make this sacrifice by adopting Bush's strategy.
Electorally, this throws 2004 into partisan doubt but it also makes the election irrelevant for foreign observers. If George W. Bush becomes the moderate choice, all those left wing european politicians praying day and night that the american people remove this wild cowboy will be unpleasantly surprised if they get their wish as nothing, from their perspective, changes with a Democrat in office.
I don't think that the Democrats will be able to execute this outflanking maneuver well enough to pull it off in 2004. But their eventual win by this method will have the benefit of recreating the traditional US political situation of small changes, left or right depending on who wins the election, inside a wider context of foreign policy consensus. This makes the US much more predictable and stable, comforting our allies and dismaying our enemies.
Posted by TMLutas at February 3, 2004 08:56 AM