RALEIGH – You have to admit I’ve been patient. It’s been more than a week since Election Day. Almost all the outcomes are known – except for the Washington governor’s race, two U.S. House races headed to runoffs in Louisiana, and the state superintendent of public instruction race here in North Carolina. The exit polls have been digested, regurgitated, and digested again. Political pontiffs have pontificated. Political junkies have junked the conventional wisdom.
Can I talk about the 2008 elections now?
Just can’t help myself. For one thing, I don’t think it’s possible to consider how the two parties will react to this year’s significant Republican gains without thinking through the presidential possibilities in 2008. The Democratic Party, now out of national power in a way it hasn’t experienced since the 1920s, will not get back into the game without developing some new national leaders. These will, inevitably, become presidential or vice presidential prospects.
And the Republicans, for their part, will seek to cement their slight governing majority by grooming a new class of national leaders who have the ability to speak to constituencies that President Bush did not really win over, such as swing voters in Pennsylvania, parts of New England, Oregon, and the upper Midwest.
Dick Morris, former President Bill Clinton’s longtime strategist and now a columnist and commentator, spoke to a John Locke Foundation audience Tuesday and couldn’t help himself either. He predicted that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he truly detests (his feelings about the former president are mixed), will run for and receive the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. In response, he thinks that the Republicans should not pass up such an historic occasion themselves – or else risk being flattened by a demographic steamroller – and should nominate National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
I find this scenario plausible, though not a certainty as Morris suggested. I also find it fascinating. A Hillary-Condi race would be a stark contrast with the potential truly to redefine the two major political parties. Furthermore, it is not the only reason to believe that 2008 might be the electoral year of the woman in a way that earlier election cycles really were not.
Here in North Carolina, for example, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue will likely run a strong campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2008. State Treasurer Richard Moore or Attorney General Roy Cooper may run strong campaigns, too, but it may be difficult to defeat her. In response, would North Carolina Republicans – already reeling from a decisive gubernatorial loss in a year that their presidential candidate won 56 percent of the vote and their U.S. Senate candidate won surprisingly easily – consider their own gambit to stay competitive by nominating a female candidate? I’ve heard talk already of some potential candidates, including U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick and former NC Rep. Carolyn Russell, now co-chairing the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity.
Also, remember that Sen. Elizabeth Dole will be up for re-election in 2008. Will she seek it, or run for national office again, or perhaps even seek to cap her career in public service with a gubernatorial bid?
Admit it: you find these questions to be as interesting and challenging as I do. It’s not too early to speculate and strategize. As a physicist might put it, elections are a quantum phenomenon but politics is a wave.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.