"Clinton has the left of her party so sewn up that she can afford to move to the centre without alienating her base."

Codswallop!

She is getting further and further disconnected from the "left of the party." The progressive activists who are willing to spend money and effort on the Party are hacked off at her and are not going to come through for her during the primary season. I personally don't see how she can win the primaries.

Of course, there is no "left" in any major American party, but we'll let that pass.

Here's the relevant excerpt (the split I am referring to here is primarily over the war in Iraq as in Jerome's post):

• Many Republicans will continue to distance themselves from Bush.  He won't receive many invites to congressional districts with competitive races, and candidates will avoid presidential photo-ops and otherwise avoid appearing buddy-buddy with Bush.  At least a few candidates will make significant noise running openly against Bush's policies in Republican primaries.
  
• Rather than allow this growing wing of the Republican party to have a voice in the national debate, the Conservative core of the Republican party will be unforgiving of this trend and stubbornly hold their ground.  There will be no internal compromises and no policy shifts.  The two sides will grow farther apart until signs of a clear split begin to emerge.  The current leadership will retain control over the party, but there will be some important fallout.  Moderate Republicans, already being pushed out, will be forced further into the fringes of the Republican party and beyond.  Many will find themselves voting for moderate alternatives in Republican primaries and Democratic candidates in general elections.
  

Of course the Dems could nominate an anti-war candidate, but it seems like the establishment really doesn't want to do this.

Sounds like a terrific plan to me.

Karl Rove circulated a map to the oil companies in 2000. The texans drew up a map dividing the persian Gulf. This was documented by a book, later classified in a rush as CBS broke the story and flashed the map, then quickly declassified even though it had already been classified. Again, this action was taken by the senior Advisor Karl Rove - to try to cover his tracks.

So if you think the party can only change after an electoral loss, what is implicit is important: you are saying If Karl Rove loses. He drives these campaigns, he even got behind smearing Hackett. Swift boating is now a verb.

What I would like to see, if you could, is a connect the dots here so that instead of guessing about the election results, instead questioning the basis of the Republican platform that brought so many african Americans into the party at the turn of the century - standing for freedom, effecient government, integration - not a bloated 130 billion dollar a year boondoggle. Rove seems to drive big government into the party, while taking every measure to quash debate on the matter. Republicans working their way back to a base is crucial because the activist base of the party is aligned squarely on issues of rights that most americans, republican or democrat, adopt in some measure - ex. emminent domain.

Bringing out the parts of that platform that you agree with is a patriotic act and shuts down rove. Treating it all like a game show where the biggest donors win and america sits by like meek participants while the special interests battle it out - seems to me this is as much playing Roves game as you can get.

Question the rules. The rules before used to say niggers go to the back of the bus. We won then,
we'll win again.

Good post otherwise.

Pres Bush would listen more to Republicans so I hope more Republicans have the courage to demand of George Bush to do the right thing.

I think the first step to solving Iraq is get rid of present advisors and Rumsfeld and get new perspective and faces.  The only way he would do that is for his Republican constituency to demand it.

I am so  disappointed with Gen Powell, Sen McCain, etc.

Even that prediction could change in the next two years. Hagel may be better at reading the tea leaves than Murphy. Hagel has been back to his district. Has Murphy been hanging around D.C. and Crawford or getting out into the trenches?

A "bring the troops home" Democrat will win the Democratic primary and the Presidency. Anybody who thinks a bigger warmonger than Hagel can win a Democratic primary is nuts.

Hagel could run in the Democratic presidential primary and beat any Democrat who doesn't have a short term exit plan for Iraq.

Howard Dean demands an exit strategy:

Bingo.  The Dem leadership should stay out of it for now.  Just like the Social Security debate, nothing good comes to them from getting in the way of a train wreck in progress.

They simply have no input that will be acted on anyway.  Demanding "withdrawal" only sets them (and us) up for the blame.