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Home > Blogs > Campaigns Don't Count > Archives > 2007 > November > 14
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Can good news from Iraq change the prediction?
If you understand American politics better than the pundits, and you’re asking yourself which party will win the presidency next year, you are not looking at the debates or the polls or the pundits’ overheated discussions about whose tongue has slipped most calamitously in the last fortnight.
You’re look at the context, at the nation’s changing circumstances.
One relevant circumstance is changing as this is written: The Iraq war. No doubt about it, American casualties are down. Sectarian violence is down. Major terrorist attacks are down. Some news reports are close to glowing. Optimism is up, even among Iraqis.
All this might not all be attributable to the American “surge.” Other factors might be helping. Whatever. The point is the news is good.
The view that 2008 is looking good for Democrats (offered and expanded upon in the first posts on this blog; see Oct. 5) is based in part on the judgment that the second Bush administration has seen a “major” setback or failure in foreign or defense policy. Whether there has been such a setback is one of the 13 questions posed by the system being promoted here.
Is it possible that the situation in Iraq will turn around enough by next year that the war there cannot be considered a major failure? Theoretically, yes. Well into 1864, many people thought that Abe Lincoln would lose his re-election bid. In fact, he thought so, himself. But the war turned around, and won.
Remember, the issue isn’t whether there’s a war. The issue is how it’s going.
I called Allan Lichtman on Iraq. He made two points, mainly:
1: It’s possible, but still very unlikely that things can go well enough to turn back the foreign-policy-failure “key.” The notion that the war is a failure (meaning that we’re bogged down, that’s it’s not a success, that it’s gone on longer than anybody wanted) is so deeply ingrained by now.
(He didn’t say it, but the Civil War had specific, major, turning-point battles which obviously brought the South’s surrender closer. That’s not how the Iraq is.
2: Meanwhile, the news on the economic front is bad for Bush. One “key” is about the long-term economy. It asks whether the economy has grown slower during the current presidential term than during the previous two terms, on average. The answer is marginal. Two months ago, Lichtman wasn’t turning the key against Bush. But any downturn - now fairly widely expected - would require doing so.
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