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The politics of this thing are totally fascinating and one reason why I love politics to begin with. First, it is absolutely amazing the hubris that Moveon.org shows. They really thought that because they hate the President so much and by extension anyone associated with him that this attack would play with the country at large. They could never understand that the rest of the country doesn't think like them.
Then, there is Rudy. The thing about Rudy is confrontation is what he likes. I would bet that in school he probably got into plenty of fights. Now, he gets into political brawls all of the time.
As Charles Krauthammer aptly put, Rudy hit all the erogenous zones at once: Moveon.org, the New York Times, and Hillary Clinton. It was a brilliant piece of political gamesmanship on his part.
As for the Democrats they are between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they can't condemn Moveon.org because that spells sudden death in the primaries and on the other hand if they don't, they will live to regret it in the general election.
Once we combine this sordid affair with their unwillingness to debate on FoxNews it is going to be easy for the average voter to make the connection from A to B to see that they are beholden to the far left.
What the far left never understood is that besides their own types everyone else can't stand and is afraid of them.
Nothing changes the fact the Democrats are politically married to a series of failed attempts to force America's defeat and surrender in Iraq.
It will haunt them for generations...if the party lasts that long. I'm reminded of an article in the Weekly Standard this week.
Possibly "New Democrats" à la Tony Blair will rally round such lonely voices as Joe Lieberman's--but remember that New Labour fought its way out of the political womb and all the way to Number 10 only because of the Tories' ongoing nervous breakdown. More likely, America's political spectrum a decade or more in the future will be defined by two parties both born of today's GOP after a natural and painless mitosis. There's at least as much distance between a Rudy Giuliani and a Mike Huckabee as there ever was between JFK and Nixon, or even Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower. Americans traditionally like their two opposing parties to differ on domestic affairs but agree on basic foreign policy--not because things are nicer that way; rather because foreign-policy arguments are good for our enemies, bad for our friends, and hugely dangerous to ourselves--especially in an age when swarms of maniac, murderous jihadists blacken the Middle East like toxic locusts.
It's a very intelligent guess. Years from now I expect that the political parties will be Blue Dog Dems and GOP centrists on one side, and traditional conservatives on the other.
The moonbat MoveOn Kos Kids? They'll have split off into a meaningless third party sometime after the Dems get steamrolled in 2008. The coutry will take a sharp turn rightwards, I believe.
Perhaps the "MoveOn Moment" will be the one remembered as the beginning of that turning point...and the end of the Democratic Party as we know it today.
I forgot one very important thing about Rudy. It turns out that Moveon.org has decided to run some anti Rudy ads in Iowa.
NOw, as any astute political insider knows, Rudy started late in organizing in Iowa and didn't get on the air, and this gave him a clear disadvantage compared to Romney. Well, having Moveon.org run ads against is frankly even better than running your own ads and certainly cheaper. I don't know how much airtime they bought but the Rudy camp must be thinking the more the better. There is a straight up analysis of why these ads won't work on hotair.com, however the real reason is that they are run by Moveon.org. Once any Republican sees a moveon.org ad against Rudy, they will immediately find Rudy that much more acceptable.
Again, it is the height of political hubris for Moveon.org to think that they can influence in the way they want the Republican primary. Maybe, they secretly want Rudy to get the nomination. I don't know, but if they do this will all make much more sense.
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