What happened to the "sniper fire..." post??? There was a blog entry with a title alluding to the fact that Hillary Clinton had lied about sniper fire, and it seems to have just disappeared.

Did you guys write one and decide to delete it or was there a technical problem or what?

Just wondering, as I would have liked to read it.

I think that post was pulled, jay. I'd like to read it, too.

There's been an irritating amount of opportunism about this from all sides.  Having Michigan Democratic voters represented at the convention has been at best a secondary concern for both campaigns, as well as the DNC and the Michigan Democratic Party.  The DNC wanted to keep its primary schedule intact, the state party wanted an influential early primary, and the campaigns wanted whatever they thought at the time was best for their candidate in terms of votes and delegates.  The voters were an afterthought for everybody involved, so the posturing about democracy at this point is disingenuous.

Michigan voters have been let down by at least four different organizations on this one.  I just hope there isn't lingering resentment come November.

Sniper lie story from Dailykos:

www.dailykos.com/.../482309

Jonathan,

Perhaps Obama has gotten no grief for his efforts toward voter nullification in Michigan and Florida because of posts like yours, whose rhetorical emphasis is on blaming Clinton for something Obama has done. This, of course, is a real pattern in this campaign, and it is much noticed and resented by Clinton supporters.

The fights in Michigan and Florida demonstrate that Obama isn't all smiles and fancy words. He's showing a necessary toughness and political shrewdness that people have wondered about. Now that he's shown he can throw a few elbows, that's a good thing, right?

I'm not sure why the Michigan legislature's refusal to consider a revote translates into Obama causing "voter nullification." Unless you can provide evidence that Obama somehow strong-armed the entire state legislature, that's just Clinton campaign spin.

I think Clintonwas ambivalent about Michigan -- I don't think it was a shoe-in at all that she would win it.  If I were Hillary, I'd forget about Michigan, claim that popular votes in Florida are legit, and do your best to win the popular vote total/as many of the remaining primaries as you can.

To her credit, today Hillary is talking about a Rubin/Greenspan panel to consider foreclosure legislation and talking-up a sensible plan to tie a failed mortgage auction to repayment schedules (or so I understand it -- I'm fuzzy on the details).  Too bad we can't talk about that on the allegedly non-campaign TNR blog.  

I'm sorry, but this "voter nullification" crap is beginning to cross the line from basically harmless "spin" into simply being a lie. Michigan and Florida _chose_ to hold primaries they knew would elect no delegates in the hopes that they could thereby gain influence over the race in the early weeks. Both states attempted to nullify the votes of the 40 or more states that would follow them. The gamble did not pay off, and this year, unlike 2004, the election is being decided by delegates, not by an early tsunami of public perceptions. Had Michigan and Florida succeeded in creating a tidal wave of public perceptions in favor of a candidate, as happened in 2004, that candidate's supporters would not now be spreading calumnies in an attempt to let those states vote twice to give the loser a fair shot to make a comback with new primaries that will elect delegates.

The only "nullification" that has been attempted here is Michigan and Florida's attempts to nullify _my_ vote, and the votes of the people of 40 or so other states, which they attempted by deliberately nullifying their own votes in terms of the delegate race.

Oh no, pc,

Hillary has entirely herself to blame.  I've posted about this before, comparing her strategy in MI and FL to Al Gore's tactics in the FL recount fight.  First she agreed that the MI and FL were a nullity.  Then she alone kept her name on the MI ballot.  Then she argued that the MI results should count rather than take a principled position that there should be a re-vote.  Pure opportunism.  Not only would it have been a windfall to walk off with the entire MI delegation, but at that point she was afraid that she would lose MI and only damage her campaign's spin and chances to persuade the super-delegates.

Only when it was clear that a) the MI delegation would not be seated as is and b) she was so far behind anyway that she had everything to gain and nothing left to lose from a MI re-vote did she suddenly discover the benefits of democracy.

During most of that period, the Obama campaign was saying that while it opposed seating delegations chosen in non-elections, it would support a re-vote.  Hillary had only to stop pushing for the illegitimate results to be counted and say yes to a re-vote, while there was still time, and it might have happened.  At the very least, had Obama then shifted to blocking, she would have gotten the good press that you fantasize she is entitled to because it would have been clear that he, rather than she, was the hypocritical opportunist.

Once again, Hillary's cynicism and opportunism are her undoing.  There is grudging respect in our political culture for someone who can play rough successfully, as when Bush knee-capped McCain in the 2000 primaries.  There is no respect for someone who plays rough badly.  Hillary has proven yet again that she is politically tone-deaf.  You cannot blame her weaknesses on Obama's supporters.  They are entirely her own.

The "sniper-fire lie" story is here on the Plank. See "The Walter Mitty Candidate" posted on March 21.

Hey, PC - how come you've been completely silent on the sniper-fire lie? Just curious, as you're normally very active here. I guess you haven't been able to craft a convincing dismissal of HRC's lies about this story.

I don't know how you can call it "The Democratic Party" when the Party won't let voters in two large and important states vote in its primary.

Like much else that has been seen in this primary process, your procedures make a mockery of your claim to be democratic.

Chan,

The states of MI and FL had every right to vote within the rules.  Indeed, they could have opted for a second bite, a re-vote, and did not.  It is just the latest Hillary spin that the party, Obama, someone, is preventing MI and FL from participating.  The gist of this spin is to cast the delegate selection process as illegitimate so that she can claim that it should be ignored.  Keep up the good work.  You are always on message.  Since you are a self-proclaimed Republican voter, I take this as an indication that you would rather have McCain face off against Hillary than Obama.  If I were a Republican, I would too.

The Democratic party is certainly imperfect in its implementation of democracy.  What is needs is a few lessons from the Republicans in voter intimidation, differential voting mechanics that make it more likely that votes in wealthy Republican districts will be cast and counted while poor, Democratic leaning voters face long lines and machinery that discards their votes, throwing bona fide voters of the other party off of the registration rolls, various legislative means to limit registration of Democratic voters, gerrymandering -- all those great tactics that the Republican party has pioneered to ensure minority rule by a privileged elite.

It makes perfect sense that you would admire an "election" in which only one name appeared on the ballot.  This is, indeed, the Republican ideal of a free and fair election.  The Republican party, at its heart, is Leninist, just of the right.

According to Roid, Marc Ambinder just became a Hillary Clinton shill (because he's reported that the Obama camp balked at proposed MI revote plans that Clinton's campaign had agreed to).  And it's a bit puzzling to hear a defender of the Dem's delagate selection process complain about gerrymandering (news flash Roid: Democrats gerrymander too.  Take a look at Louis Gutierrez' district in Chicago -- you'll have a hard time finding a Republican-drawn monstrosity to match it).  

roid, don't tell it to me.  Tell your voters in FL and MI.

They're not going to blame Obama.  They're not going to blame the Clintons.  They're going to blame the Democratic Party that is so mismanaged that millions of Demcorats in two states are being disenfranchised.

I don't know how that anger will manifest itself.  But, it can't be good for the Dem Party, because one outlet for frustrated Democrats will be to vote for McCain in November.

Something many Democrats, ever here at tnr, have said they don't find obnoxious.

roid writes, "...I take this as an indication that you would rather have McCain face off against Hillary than Obama.  If I were a Republican, I would too."

I used to think Clinton was the weaker opponent.  But, that is no longer clear.  Each of them has major liabilities.  

This is what happens when voters, driven by the politically correct impulse to prove how open minded they are, choose candidates, who but for respectively their gender and their color, would not otherwise have been considered yet eligible for the presidency.

But, I do sympathize.  Looking at the Democrat's collection on the stage when it was ten or twelve suits, you didn't really have a lot of marvelous choices.

But then, my problem with America circa 2008, is that both parties with a nation of 320 millions, don't have as worthy a collection of people as we had in Philadelphia in 1776 from a pool of 3 million.

roid writes, "The Democratic party is certainly imperfect in its implementation of democracy.  What is needs is a few lessons from the Republicans in voter intimidation,"

Your problem, dear roid, is that people like Howard Dean run your party.  Your bizarre mix of incomprehensible caucuses and proportional voting that is different in every state, plus the eschewing of winner take all is a guarantee of chaos.

You ought to be renamed the Byzantine Party.

The 18th century critique of democracy was that it would lead to chaos.  The modern Democratic Party seems intent on proving the old reactionaries right.

Rhubarbs,

Not to keep rehashing the same arguments, but if your objection is that it would be unfair to the other states if Michigan and Florida got to affect both the delegate race and the early momentum, then aren't the Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina contests just as unfair to the other states?  Iowa and New Hampshire have been attempting to "nullify" votes in the other states for decades (and often succeeding). Where are the calls to strip them of their delegates? At least the Republicans had the sense to apply their penalty to all of the early contests (actually, Iowa got off on a loophole because the caucuses are technically nonbinding, as we saw recently when Obama picked up an extra 9 delegates there).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the real objection here seems to be is that Florida and Michigan broke the rules.  The DNC, however, seems to think it would be within the rules to have a new vote and count that one.

As to voting twice, don't Washington residents also get to vote twice, once in a contest that counts and once in a contest that doesn't?  Texas voters can essentially vote twice, with both votes actually counting.  For that matter, the Iowa straw poll is another contest with "momentum" but no delegates at stake.  States are perfectly within their rights to have as many meaningless contests as they want, but somewhere along the way, there should be a responsibility to the voters to have an election that actually counts.  Everybody involved dropped the ball on that count.

Look, Chan,

Roi may overstate the case about the Republican voting rules versus the Democratic rules, but the GOP has hardly been small-d democratic either. I'm a registered Republican in New York who wasn't even able to cast a primary ballot in the state until 2000 -- and only after there was a huge outcry that the state's entire delegation was about to handed over to Bush without a vote.

I'm not keen on these winner-take-all primaries our party holds either. I once heard the Dems' primaries described as being like the Special Olympics, in that "everyone's a winner!" because the delegates awarded bear little relationship to the vote proportions. We have the opposite problem. Giving all of a state's votes  simply disenfranchises too many voters' wishes.

Regardless of who benefits, I do not see how a party can select a candidate without proper representation from two major, or even minor, states and expect to win the Presidency.

I am grateful to Chris for the Tom Lehrer interlude. I also agree with Chris that, insofar as Evan Bayh's

BHLnyc, well to solve your problems, both parties have to nationalize the primaries.

That is, each party needs to gather and create a system that is consistent throughout all the states.  And, if proportionality is the deal, then work it out mathematically so that a) everybody can easily understand it, and b) make sure that the proportions are dealt out with mathematical precision so that your ultimate delegate holdings properly reflect the number of votes you actually won.

One thing I've never understood was how Clinton's name somehow stayed on the ballot in Michigan.  Even the Biden campaign (two guys in a basement in Wilmington) somehow managed to get Joe's name off the ballot in MI.  What is the explanation for Clinton's name being the ONLY one staying on, when she agreed to abide by the boycott?  Was it just another inadvertent Clinton campaign screw-up, or was it intentional?  Neither explanation reflects favorably on mme. Clinton.  Perhaps the ubiquitous pc costello can educate us on the matter.

With respect to Florida, while you never like to take a state taken off the board, something happened demographically in FLA between 2000 and 2004 that turned it from purple to deep pink. John Kerry was hardly a strong candidate, but there is no way Bush should have picked up 4% of the voters without a significant shift in the underlying dynamics in the state electorate. Although the delegate train-wreck certainly didn't help the situation, I don't think Florida was really in play this year anyway.          

Chan,

By no means am I arguing that the Dems have a good system in place, but I actually think winner-take-all is a lousy system, even more so if, as for the Republican primaries, only some states use it.  McCain was only slightly ahead of Romney and Huckabee in terms of percentage of the vote, but happened to do better in big states with winner-take-all (or winner-take-nearly-all) systems.  Had it been proportional, Romney would have been slightly ahead after Super Tuesday.  Winner-take-all gets you a nominee faster, but not necessarily the nominee that people in the party actually want, and it's hardly a paragon of democracy.  McCain benefited from the system and the fact that Romney and Huckabee were splitting the conservative vote, letting McCain eke out pluralities in places like SC, FL, MO, and CA.

Personally, I think proportional representation is fine, but it should be proportional at the state level, which would minimize random rounding effects, and ideally the states should be more uniform in the actual process used (a simple primary would be best).  That and ditching the superdelegates would make things a lot better, with the main outstanding problem being how the primaries are scheduled.

Well chan,

I would rather be holding the Democratic hand than the Republican hand right now, with all the difficulties.  Once McCain starts slurring his speech and comes under renewed scrutiny, you will be wishing for Romney, or even Huckabee.

The Republicans over-estimate the importance of Iraq.  "It's the economy, stupid," which will be in the toilet by September despite Bernanke's best efforts.

If you don't like the way the political culture serves up media friendly figures whom you regard as light in the loafers -- thank the Republican party for Ronald Reagan, the granddaddy of them all.  It may be a very long time before we see another president with the "experience" (for what it was worth) of George H. W. Bush.

Chan,

Fully agree. Consistency will alleviate a lot of headaches. Also, the system of letting Iowa and New Hampshire winnow out all the "non-contenders" is absurd. I certainly am sympathetic to the impulse Michigan and Florida felt in moving up their primaries in order to have an impact on the nominating process, but they badly bungled their effort.

I suspect that after this year's chaos, the impetus for some major changes will be strong -- and I expect President Obama to lead the way.

Exactly naomi,

Florida isn't in play in the general and the vote in MI will not change because of the primary screwup.  All of the handwringing about how the Dems cannot win because of MI and FL is coming from people who wish that were so.  Most of the public moaning and groaning by the national party is just a dog and pony show so that the voters of MI and FL don't get the feeling that the rest of us don't think they are terribly, terribly important.

roid and friends, whether arrived at equitably or not, I am quite confident that John McCain is a far superior candidate to either Huckabee (smart and eloquent but too regional) or Romney (not scintilating, came off like the Stepford Candidate).

McCain does not have, say, Obama's eloquence.  Who does.  But, he is an authentic, credible, plain speaker whom people respect, admire, and easily relate to.

I'm perfectly happy with the GOP "hand" roid.  Let the best man (human) win.

As to Ronald Reagan, roid, though I he was not a "great communicator" to my taste-- I prefer Jack Kennedy's rhetoric, thanks-- he was extremely effective, even in one on one debates.

If you trouble to read his diaries, even just a few excerpts, you will see that he was clearly not the manipulated dummy of caricature.

And, like Lincoln, or any president, who is happy with lucky generals, Regan's presidency was the most successful since Eisenhower's and then FDR's before him.

If you think that was just an amazing accident, then let's go to Vegas together.

I mean, yeah, BHLnyc, if there were any logic to our primary system, you'd think we'd want far more representative states than Iowa and New Hampshire doing the winnowing.

I know the argument is that their scale makes them more affordable and thus fairer to unknowns, and that the voters get an intimate look at the candidates.  

But, even conceding some of the wisdom of that, it still seems to be a peculiar system and not much more dispositive than the old smoke filled rooms.

roid, given what happened in 2000, why do you think that FL is "not in play"?

Chan,

If you think Reagan's presidency was successful, let's indeed go to Vegas:  the beginning of the supply-side fraud, massive structural deficits, the inevitable trade deficits to follow, the "great sucking sound" of high-paying American jobs disappearing, Iran-contra, our backing Saddam Hussein with its culmination (albeit on Bush I's watch) with the First Gulf War -- you call that success?  Unless of course you are one of those who imagine that Reagan, rather than the long patience of containment and the internal contradictions of communism, in which case -- let's go to Vegas.

FL has gotten rather more red than it was in 2000. The best case now is to tie McCain down a bit defending it.

Chan,

Most polls give McCain at least a 3 to 7 point lead in Florida, which is consistent with Bush's relatively comfortable victory in 2004. In any case, it seems obvious that if Obama (or Clinton, although she won't be the nominee) wins in Florida, it won't be needed.  A Florida win means that BHO will have also won most or all of the other battleground states, and the election.      

roid,youwrite," Unless of course you are one of those who imagine that Reagan, rather than the long patience of containment and the internal contradictions of communism, in which case -- let's go to Vegas."

roid, in the 1980's the Democrats were backing down on containment.  Losing heart, losing faith, and losing guts.

They tried to cancel the B-2 which would have been disastrous if it had succeeded.  The Democrats didn't want to deploy intermediate missiles in Europe to counter the Soviets.

Before Vietnam, the Democrats were strong Cold Warriors.  Afterwards, they lost their nerve.  Fortunately, Reagan and the Republicans and some non-wus Dems held it together.

So, don't try to maintain that containment of the Soviets was bipartisan for the entire 41 years.  For half that time, the Democrats, as a party, were whining that we had to be understanding of the Soviets and that we shouldn't provoke them.

The days of JFK/Johnson/Truman style Democrats is almost two generations gone, roid.  So don't grab credit where it is not due.

roid writes, "...our backing Saddam Hussein with its culmination (albeit on Bush I's watch) with the First Gulf War"

We backed Hussein to counter Iran.  They fought a nasty stalemate war like WW1 for eight years.  Which kept them both out of mischief for eight years.

It was good policy.  It's what nations do to use jujitsu on bad actors.  

the first Gulf War happened because Saddam misread our intentions or the first Bush didn't make it damn clear that a Kuwait invasion would not stand.  

Once again showing why tought talk, judiciously employed, is useful.

Oh, and, roid, Saddam had good reason to think we wouldn't stop him from invading Kuwait:  Democrats.

Because of their equivocal talk during the 70s and 80s, and legacies like Jimmy Carter, Saddam had good reason to think we were a paper tiger.

And, in fact, it was a close run thing in the Congress.  most Democrats voted against our intervention to drive Saddam out of Kuwait.  Only a few stalwart Democrats (you are not all craven) voted for the intervention and saved the day.

Chan,

McCain was without question the best candidate the Republicans could have nominated, and he had the nomination sewn up fairly quickly, so it seems on the surface like the system worked.  The problem is that the actual result had far less to do with the system in place than the particulars of the election (e.g. Huckabee and Romney splitting the conservative vote, Giuliani's campaign imploding and leaving the moderates to McCain).  Winner-take-all systems can be extremely volatile when more than two candidates are competitive.

Regarding Florida,  it certainly looks like more of an uphill climb than it's been recently for either Democratic candidate, probably more so for Obama than Clinton.  It's been trending red for a while now.  That said, it's almost certainly still in play, even if McCain starts out with an edge there.  Polls can and do move over the course of the election, so it's far too early to be writing off states that could be competitive (this is also true for blue states like OR, PA, NJ, and MI).

Yeah, yeah, chan,

You're right.  For most of the Cold War, containment was not a bipartisan policy.  The wacko Republicans -- the progenitors of "Bring 'em on" Bush -- were looking to have a hot war whenever possible.  They thought it "romantic."

The policy of arms agreements was ultimately much more fruitful than ratcheting up the threat level.  I will give Nixon some credit for that -- the last elected Republican who wasn't a fantasist, merely a paranoid.

Has the thought ever crossed your mind, chan, that if we had just stayed out of the Iran-Iraq war and let the antagonists fight it out without us we might not have had two invasions of Iraq and an Iran hell-bent on obtaining nuclear weapons and likely to get them?  Great policy keeping them out of mischief.  Well though out strategy.  Deep.  There is such a thing as being too clever by half.  You shouldn't have to look this stuff up Chan.  You are old enough to remember it.

The real problem with all of you Republicans is that you imagine that chest-thumping and loudly proclaimed patriotism is a substitute for brains.  It isn't.  The rest of the world goes on about its business -- some pretty wicked -- unimpressed by your bellicosity and proclamations that America is great.  And when we are lead by these types who really have a tenuous grasp on reality, disaster ensues.

Finally, the reason that Saddam thought he could get away with invading Kuwait is that 1) we had been his backers for some time 2) Bush's ambassador to Iraq (not a Democrat Chan, Bush's ambassador, taking instructions from Bush's Department of State) met with Hussein and was very ambiguous in her remarks to him, 3) when Bush wanted to show the flag and send a signal of US intentions,  he didn't send the Navy, he sent a couple of AWACs aircraft which looked like nothing at all and merely sent the message that Bush was only concerned about Saudi Arabia and indifferent to the fate of Kuwait.

I will say this for Reagan though.  When he wanted to invade something to demonstrate the size of his balls, he had the good sense to pick a country like Grenada.  Good for PR, not too threatening.  19 US fatalities.

roid, you managed to tap dance around the salient point.  The majority of Democrats voted against the Gulf War to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.  It would have been craven to let that stand.

Democrats are also fond of saying that Republicans are stupid.  But for forty years, the only times they've been smart enough to elect a candidate president is when an incumbent was crippled by a scandal not of his making (Ford).  And when a third party candidate created a great sucking sound that sucked off what would otherwise have been GOP votes.

Those same stupid Republicans have pretty well kept the Democrats tied up, even when the Dems won both houses of Congress.

So, although I'm certain Republicans are quite capable of being stupid, Democrats for most of nearly half a century haven't gathered up enough smarts to beat these idiots.

That haven't won in 40 years thing is a typical canard.  In fact, so far we are off by exactly one term.  If you start counting with Truman, ignoring the extraordinary FDR, it has been two terms for Dems and two terms for Rs in strict alternation until Carter lost to Reagan and then Reagan managed to pass the baton to Bush I.  If we had had a strict alternation, there would have been, since 1944, 32 Democratic presidential years and 32 Republican.  Instead, there have been 28 Democratic and 36 Republican.  Not quite the imbalance the Republicans are so fond of pretending.  Throughout that period, the Democrats have had control of one or both houses of Congress more often.

The Republicans absolutely have a particular advantage in the Congress:  party discipline.  But that is understandable.  When your party is indistinguishable from the Mafia and its entire reason for being is to steal from the public purse, you are in a position to demand loyalty as the disloyal do not get their payoffs, in lobbying jobs, contracts, etc., when their turn comes.  The Republicans use public dollars to enforce that party discipline.  For Democrats, who actually aspire to govern the country effectively, although they often do not succeed, it is inevitable that political disputes about how to govern will occur frequently.  If the Dems would just bribe away, as the Repulicans do, it would be a lot easier, but then we would have two corrupt, criminal organizations as parties, rather than one that is a crime family and another that is merely a dysfunctional family.

You have nothing to be proud of.

One might also point out that Nixon was interfering with diplomacy with North Vietnam lest there be some good news that would propel Humphrey to the White House and Reagan apparently did the same with the Iran hostages.

Very patriotic these Republicans.  

'64 LBJ    D

'68 RMN  R

'72 RMN  R

'76 JC      D

'80  RR    R

'84  RR    R

'88  GB1  R

'92  WJC D

'96  WJC D

'00  GB2  R

'04  GB2  R

Well, let's see, roid.  In the forty years and eleven presidential elections from '64 thru '04, the Dems won 4 and the GOP won 7.

Of those Democratic presidents, only one was able to secure re-election.  One Republican resigned for lying.  One Democrat was impeached for lying.

To a certain extent, most American politicians suck.  But, Democrats would appear to suck a lot worse.  At least during my entire adult.  And probably yours.

Like most Rs trying to make a point where there is none, you start counting at a convenient place, lopping off Kennedy.  If you want to account, you have to take multiples of 16, representing the norm of 8 years for a president and a full cycle of two and two.  Take 16 or 32 or 48 or 64.  You cannot support your claim.  In the last 32 years, it is 5 R terms and 3 D terms.  In the last 48, it is 7 and 5.  The only anomaly going all the way back to FDR and Truman when the Ds has 5 successive terms in the White House was Jimmy Carter who missed a term that went to Reagan-Bush

Or, viewed another way, in the last 48 years there were two Ds who could not secure re-election, Johnson and Carter, and two Rs, Ford and Bush I.  The real anomaly is only Jimmy Carter.  That does not a giant political point make.  I couldn't stand Carter when I voted for him.  Can't stand him now.  I might even like him less than Hillary Clinton, although it's hard to say.

I like Hillary Clinton better than Jimmy Carter.  You can sure as hell bet she would not have given away the Panama Canal.  That broad gives away nothing.  Like her for that.

gee, roid, typical Dem counting from Roosevelt.

Let's start with 1900 McKinley R.  1904 T. Roosevelt R. 1908  W. Taft, R again.  1912 Wislon D.  !916 Wilson D.  1920 Harding R.  1924 Coolidge R.  1928 Hoover R.

You work it out roid, I triust you.  Who's winning?

Take any multiple of 16 that you like Chan.  You just cannot start with a smaller unit and get an honest count, as if that were your point.  In the last 64 years, 8 presidential terms, there have been 9 Republican and 7 Democratic.  In the preceding 64 years, there were 9 Republican terms and 7 Democratic terms.  In the 64 years prior to that 11 Democratic terms and 5 other.  Prior to that 4 Dem, 1 other.   In the history of the Republic, we have had Washington plus 29 Democratic terms and 25 other.

So, it would certainly be fair to say that the early Democratic dominance in presidential politics, unlike anything ever achieved by any other party or combination of parties, has waned in favor of a very slight edge for the Republican party in the modern era, two more than an equal number of elections won out of the last 32 elections.  1 more than an equal number of elections won out of the last 16 elections.  The fact remains that, since FDR, the only anomaly in a strict 2 x 2 rotation is Carter-Reagan-Bush.  Hardly the tale of Republican dominance that you Republicans like to claim.

And I noticed that you completely skirted the behind the scenes interference by Nixon and Reagan with US diplomacy in the run up to the 1968 and 1980 elections in order to prevent any positive development that might have given the incumbent the victory.  Reprehensible, don't you think?

Meanwhile, since 1945, there have been all of 4 years, under Bush the Fool, during which the Republicans were elected to the presidency and a majority of both houses of Congress and 18 such years for the Democrats.  The Republicans have held the Senate for 20 of those years, the Democrats for 44.  The Republicans have held the House for 14 of those years, the Democrats for 50.  I don't think the Republicans have any chance of holding the White House and both houses of Congress any time soon, do you?  Because of the limits of human memory, people forget after a while that the Republican party is the party of theft.  They get tired of the same faces and give the Republicans a chance to run things.  Predictably, the Republican party quickly makes an utter mess of things and then is thrown out for a generation.  I predict it will be another generation at least before we see another period when the Republicans have control.

Now, it stands to reason that the Republicans have a harder time gaining and holding power because they are the party of the screwers and the Democrats are the party of the screwees, and there are a lot more screwees.  Hence, the Republicans have had to resort to every dirty trick imaginable, including judicial coup, to try and hold power at least part of the time.  Most notable are the various efforts to throw Democratic voters off the rolls, intimidate them, or make it more difficult for them to cast their votes and have them counted.

I grant you this.  The Republicans are winning far more than they would if they would be if they weren't cheating at every opportunity, and it is more of a contest today than it has been throughout most of our history.  But to say that the Republicans are winning would be rather a stretch.  This is of course the same logic that has Hillary Clinton beating Obama by losing to him.

One last point for your algebra lesson Chan.  The only reason we see a margin for Republicans in the last 64 years is that Scalia and company gave an election won by Gore to Bush.  But for that, we would either see the last 16 elections as 8 and 8 or, as likely, 9 Dem and 7 Republican, with the Democrats having held the White House for the past 16 years.

Like I said, but for cheating at every opportunity, the Republicans would, even in the modern era, clearly still be the minority party.

But, roid, the first third of the last century it was six elections to two, Republican.  

Then, during what you yourself call the Roosevelt anomaly, '32 to 48, it was  5-0 Dems.

Then when things returned to "normalcy" again, '52 through '04, it comes out  8 Rs and 5 Ds.  

So, it looks to me like without the intervention of a Great Depression followed immediately by a World War (people don't like to swap during wars) the Republicans have trended two to three times more victorious.

The Democrats, roid, have suffered twice in the last 148 years because of their wartime behavior.

The first was the traitorous actions of Copperhead Democrats and Southern Democrats during the Civil War.  

The Southerners, of course, seceded from the Union.  The Copperheads, of NY and other northern states wanted to surrender to the South.

As a result, the Democrats were discredited from 1865 until Wilson won in 1912 only becuase Teddy R split the REpublican vote with his Bull Moose run.  (There was one Democratic administration between the end of the Civil War and Wilson-- Grover Cleveland's two, which were split with an intervening Republican admin between them.

(Andrew Johnson was a Democrat, but never won an election.)

Then, during the the Vietnam War and especially in its aftermath, Democratic Party credibility in matters of national security went deep into the toilet.  From which it has never really emerged.

That is the root of Democratic difficulty in winning the White House.  People are just trepidacious with Dems at the wheel of the ship of state.  Now, Obama, whether fairly or not, is in a circumstance that is raising those trust fears again.

Of course, the other reason Democrats don't win the White House very often in the modern era, and especially post-68, is that the Democrats have moved so far to the Left of solid guys like JFK.

If Obama were really the reincarnation of Jack Kennedy, with his same politics, I'd vote for him in a NY minute.  But, despite what JFK's daughter and brother have talked themselve into, he only mirrors Jack in intelligence.  Not policy.   Which would make Jack Kennedy tremble.

You still don't know how to count.  You consistently choose a period that begins with a Republican administration and ends with one in order to make your point -- which is no point at all.

You don't want to consider 64 years?  Fine, take 48, any multiple of 16, in which the norm would be 8 Dem years and 8 Rep years will do.

The last 16 would likely have been Dem but for the intervention of the Supreme Court to prevent a complete recount of Florida.  But, even with the theft of the 2000 election, it is still 8 and 8.  Last 32 years, it is 5 terms to 3, the Carter difference.  But for the Supreme Court more likely 5 to 3 the other way.  Before that you have to go all the way back to the turn of the 20th century to find a point where the Repulicans enjoyed a period of dominance.  So what on earth are you talking about?

Oh, now I get it.  You are one of those guys who is still arguing that the Vietnam war was a good thing and we should have kept fighting for another 12 years, and would have but for the perfidious Democrats.  1968 was important alright, but not for the reasons you think.  Had Bobby Kennedy not been assassinated, there would have been no Nixon, no Ford, no Carter, and probably no Reagan.

The Democratic party has not moved so far to the left.  It only looks that way because the Republican party has moved into right-wing crackpot territory.  Jerry Falwell, Rush Limbaugh. Ann Coulter.  William Kristol.  Trent Lott. Tom Delay.  Your party is so far gone that is begins to make Mussolini look like maybe he was on to something.  

Did you read today that only 27% of Americans now identify themselves as Republicans?  Your time and that of your party has come and gone Chan.  We have already seen the high-water mark.  You can keep replaying your Golden Oldies of 1968 if you like, but you are losing touch with the present reality.  

roid, history is never over.  The Left and the Right have been battling since before there was a name for Left and Right.

We shall see in November where we are in what cycle.

Although in November 1964, it looked like Conservatives had been discredited till Doomsday.  Didn't turn out that way.

The bottom line.  There will always be the productive people.  And the unproductive people.  In the middle will always be a certain Patrician Class that plays to the mob, just as there was in Roman times.  That class promises the mob that it will take from the productive people and give it all to them.

On the other side, the productive people fight sometimes a rearguard action to protect what they grow, make, and create through their imagination and intellects.  Sometimes that class is overrun by the mob lead by unsavory Patricians.  Eventually that class rallies because it is, after all, the class that actually produces things.

So, although I believe the Right will beat the odds and win in November, in the long run, I'm not worried about one election cycle.  I read history.

Ah yes, the "productive people," exchanging government contracts and largesse for future (or present) executive employment for themselves and their friends and fantasizing that they are entrepreneurs, titans of industry.

Since you are such a student of history, you surely know what became of Rome.  Things move faster now.  And the patrician class of one era seldom rallies into the next.  It is replaced.

Rome lasted well more than a 1,000 years roid.  

And, the patricians I'm talking about are not the heroes.  They're the ones who play to the mob promising to give them whatever they want out of the public trough.

The trough paid for by the people who do the actual work.  Neither the mob, nor the patricians.  At least not the kind of patricians to which I refer.

Of course,

I was referring to the productive classes who make a living by passing out government favors and trading them for lucrative future or present contracts and "opportunities" for themselves and their friends.  

The Western Roman Empire did not last 1,000 years, about 3/4 of that.

Who in your estimation "does the actual work" other than all the people who work?  Are some of them doing non-actual work?  

I include the Eastern, which survived until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

The people who do the actual work are the people who work productively every day and don't expect the government to intervene massively to take responsibility for their financial lives.

When large corporations come to the tyrough and get breaks that aren't for the general good, I'm with you roid, they're welfare queens on steroids.  

When the government intervened to save Chrysler or to stabilize the financial system as with the Bear Sterns situation, that's OK.  The feds got their Chrysler money back, it kept competition in Detroit and people working.  I'm not against judicious refereeing.

The intomce tax system and the Social Security system as presently organized are both massive ripoffs.  And the government redistributes wealth massively, to buy votes.  The Dems more, the the GOP, too.

I most despise bread and circus patricians Democrats like Ted Kennedy who create massive, useless, unproductive bureaucracies to create Democratic voters.  

Or pander to illegals in the hope of creating Democratic voters.  (Republicans pander to corporations by providing them cheap labor via illegals, which I despise even more.)

I do, by the way, believe the illegals immigrants are productive workers, but they suck off so much from the safety net infrastructure (emergency rooms, hospitals) and from the schools, that they are net unproductive for us.