Longtime Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, writing in The Week, says Tuesday was Super Tuesday for the Democrats and makes some predictions about what night happen next. He sees good news for the Dems in 2012 and perhaps even 2016. His key conclusion:
The agony of the GOP, confirmed and extended on Super Tuesday, is good news for Democrats. And so is the longer term impact of what’s probable in November. Yes, Santorum or Gingrich would be easier to beat — actually, to crush — but a Romney nomination and subsequent loss would reap the whirlwind among Republicans. The almost certain reaction, the almost irresistible rationalization, would hold that the fault lies in an establishment that foisted another “moderate” on the party; that Romney wasn’t reliably far right enough — and the next time, the nominee has to be someone who’s truly, fully, and uncompromisingly conservative.
In 2016, this could make it hard for Jeb Bush, who’s responded to the excesses of this primary season — the “appeal[s] to people’s fears and emotions” — by mourning: “I used to be a conservative.” The third Bush still is — but more in the mold of Ronald Reagan — optimistic and reaching out as Reagan did to blue-collar Democrats and Hispanics. Or think of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s transgressions: He favors a referendum on marriage equality, supports some forms of gun control, and refused to join the legal challenge to Obama’s health reform.
The sounds of recrimination are already being heard. Take this complaint: “Conservatives certainly make up the large majority within the Republican Party. So why do we keep getting snookered…by candidates who are barely palatable.”
An Obama landslide over Santorum — with the president winning 57 or 58 percent of the vote and the GOP losing the Senate and even the House — would force the party to rethink itself and rediscover the reasonable side of the mainstream. A Romney loss, by a lesser margin, would reinforce the party’s displacement to the extreme. This won’t be a happy result for America, which needs two great and sensible political parties — not just center-left Democrats, but the Republicanism of Eisenhower, Reagan, the Bushes, and even Nixon.
Yes, unlike Henry VIII, this year’s GOP can’t quite manage a divorce from its pre-ordained political match. When Romney prevails and then fails and the predictable repercussions come, 2016 will see the Tea-types finally having their way. President (Hillary) Clinton, President Biden, President Cuomo, or President O’Malley will be very grateful.
Shrum is correct. You can just hear the “I told you sos” coming from Tea Party members if Romney fails.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.