The Not-So-Lovable Losers

Andrew Greeley, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, makes a comparison between two losers - The Cubs and the Democrats:

The national Democratic Party is just like the Chicago Cubs. Both organizations are lovable losers. Come to think of it, neither is all that lovable anymore. Both have become just losers.

For the Cubs we used to blame the Wrigleys. Now we blame Tribune (as it calls its corporate self). We used to blame stingy salaries. Now they pay good salaries and still lose. Through the years since Frank Chance, they have let people go to other teams, where they do better. Not only have they utilized all the traditional ways of losing, they have invented highly original ones -- like messing up young pitchers. They disgrace the city, their loyal fans (a matter of faith as Cardinal George once said) and baseball.

The Democratic Party has elected three presidents since the death of FDR -- John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- and only Clinton was re-elected. (Presidents Truman and Johnson were re-elected after succeeding presidents who died in office.) They have served up to the American people such losers as Adlai Stevenson, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry. Carter won by a close vote (against the man who pardoned Richard Nixon) and became a loser the day he took office. None was very lovable, with the exception of Stevenson, who had to run against a war hero.

The Democrats sealed their doom at the 1972 convention when they threw out Mayor Richard J. Daley and union leader George Meany, cutting themselves off from their working class and urban ethnic bases. Since then Democratic leaders (mostly from the East Coast) have been so concerned with feminist activists, gay activists, African-American activists -- though not with Latino activists -- that they have lost any sense of their own identity. They don't ask themselves where the activists will go if they don't vote Democratic. Nor do they give a hoot about Catholics, the second largest minority in the party, because they conclude the "Catholic vote" is an anti-abortion vote.

Let's examine those three Dem winners a little closer. In 1960 JFK barely beat out Richard Nixon thanks in large part to Chicago mayor Richard Daley and thousands of dead Chicago voters. If there was ever an election that deserved to be challenged, it was that one, but Nixon had a lot more class than Al Gore.

In 1976 Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford because the voters decided to punish the GOP for Watergate and Ford for pardoning Nixon. Carter won because he wasn't Republican or Jerry Ford. He proved to be so inept that the voters couldn't wait to crush him in 1980.

And finally, the new patron saint of the Dem party, Bill Clinton. Although he was elected twice, he never managed to get 50% of the popular vote against either President Bush Sr. or a truly terrible GOP candidate, Bob Dole. In each election the GOP's thunder was stolen by wacky Ross Perot. In 1992 Perot managed to convince enough disaffected Republicans to abandon President Bush and punish him for breaking his "no new taxes" pledge. Perot got 19% of the vote, most of it from people who would have been more likely to vote for Bush than Clinton. In 1996 I believe Clinton would have beaten the hapless Dole anyway, but had Perot not swung the '92 race toward the Dems, Clinton wouldn't have been running as the incumbent. We actually might have had a President Dole.

Back to the article. The writer goes on to explain that some Dems have finally come to the conclusion that opposition to the war is becoming a losing issue for them (despite the success the anti-war crowd is currently having in the Connecticut Senatorial primary). Read the coming campaign strategy here. Maybe this is why the promised Dem "New Direction for America" plan doesn't include any language regarding Iraq.