Over the weekend, I caught a little bit of the Republican town hall meeting with Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Eric Cantor.
What about Jeb Bush in 2012?
Just remember Gerald Ford in 1980.
As I recall, Pres Ford left office with low approval ratings. Four years later, he was so popular that Reagan was forced to consider him as a VP candidate.
In politics, you can't predict the future.
What about a Romney-Bush ticket in 2012? I like it a lot!
In politics, today's "hope and change" artist could be tomorrow's Jimmy Carter!
Again, the Romney-Bush-Cantor trio was excellent. It was very good. They discussed a range of issues, from domestic to foreign policy.
The media is once again in the "premature obituary" business.
Today, the media is obsessed with the Republicans' obituary.
However, wasn't it only 4 years ago that they were writing the Dems obituary?
Howard Kurtz takes us on a little trip down memory lane:
"Days after Bush was reelected in 2004, the New York Times reported that "the Democratic Party emerged from this week's election struggling over what it stood for, anxious about its political future, and bewildered about how to compete with a Republican Party that some Democrats say may be headed for a period of electoral dominance."
Another piece said there were "signs" of "a Democratic party seemingly trapped in second place," with Democrats asking:
"What will it take to break the pattern -- an act of God?"
The Los Angeles Times said the '04 outcome "threatens to leave Democrats at a long-term disadvantage in future races for the White House and battles for Congress."
Another story had "insiders" concluding that "the blue-state party needs a face from a red state if it is going to expand beyond its base on the two coasts and preserve its hold on the Upper Midwest."
Funny, then, that a Midwestern nominee carried such states as North Carolina and Virginia."
That's right.
How political expert in 2005 would have predicted that the Dems would nominate, and win, with a liberal senator from Illinois?
After all, weren't all of the experts saying that the Dems had to move south and compete in all of those Bush counties between LA and NY City?
My message: Be careful about predictions.
Again, today's "hope and change" artist will probably be tomorrow's Jimmy Carter! My guess is that today's "hope and change" is going to sound a lot like Carter's weakness in a couple of years!
