From Truth Out: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12851-gops-domination-was-only-temporary
By Paul Krugman
Thursday, 22 November 2012
James Fallows says something I’ve been thinking, too: “For the first time in my conscious life, the Democratic Party is now more organized and coherent, and less fractious and back-biting, than the Republicans,” the correspondent for The Atlantic wrote in a recent online article. “It is almost stupefying to imagine that.”
Indeed. It actually started during primary season, when — as too many have forgotten — the Republican field seemed (and was) dominated by ridiculous figures. President Obama almost revived the Democrats’ old image with his bobble in the first debate, but he and his party pulled it back together. The Democratic campaign was professional, while the Republicans acted like the Keystone Kops. Karl Rove’s image has changed from terrifying master of politics to overpaid crybaby.
But I’d go even further: the Democrats now look like the natural party of government. President George W. Bush had already established a reputation for being unable to get anything right in the actual business of governing; all that was supposedly left was political prowess, and now that’s gone too. And even the news media have, I think, begun to notice that the United States isn’t the “center-right” country of fantasy: we’re a diverse nation, ethnically and otherwise, in which a lot of liberal ideas have become perfectly mainstream.
Still, hubris and all that: this newly effective coalition could be shattered if taken for granted.
And you know what could really produce the kind of dispirited base that was supposed to doom Mr. Obama in 2012? A sellout on key Democratic values as part of a Grand Bargain on the deficit. If, say, Mr. Obama raises the retirement age in return for vague promises on revenue (promises that would be betrayed at the first opportunity) or if he appoints a deficit scold to a major economic post, it could all fall apart.
Continue reading at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12851-gops-domination-was-only-temporary
