The question Democrats, both inside and outside the Obama campaign, should be asking themselves is this: now that the magic has dissipated, what is the campaign about? More generally, what are the Democrats for in this election? That should be an easy question to answer. Democrats can justly portray themselves as the party of economic security, the party that created Social Security and Medicare and defended those programs against Republican attacks — and the party that can bring assured health coverage to all Americans.They can also portray themselves as the party of prosperity: the contrast between the Clinton economy and the Bush economy is the best free advertisement that Democrats have had since Herbert Hoover. But the message that Democrats are ready to continue and build on a grand tradition doesn’t mesh well with claims to be bringing a “new politics” and rhetoric that places blame for our current state equally on both parties. (My italics).
It seems to me, the last time a major candidate for the presidency of the U.S. was doing by saying what Mr. Krugman observes in Obama's political statements, that candidate was 3rd party candidate Ross Perot. The Democrats are surely ripping themselves to shreds this season, but are they perhaps finally sundering the great coalition of Roosevelt and Johnson? Are we witnessing the death of the Dems as we have known them as they give birth to a new party from within their ranks? I think there's a good chance that we are. Coalescing around the leftist anti-U.S. imperialism fantasies, the global warmist hysteria and their dreams of America as a parlimentary democracy centered in a stronger U.N., Obama's youthquake of intellectuals may be "totally" about to spin away into its own political orbit. If so, they will certainly be well financed. Yet, should this occur it will still remain to be seen what happens to the old Clinton "New Democrats", as they will certainly not be re-inhabiting the White House.