In 1994, during the Texas gubernatorial campaign, it is my understanding that Bush simply stuck to his guns, being his polite and friendly self, not responding to negative attacks from the incumbent, Ann Richards. Out of frustration that she wasn’t having an impact on Bush or his campaign, Richards finally made a public statement in some venue or other that “George Bush is an idiot!” This immediately swung the election in Bush’s favor and he never looked back. Ah, that was a kindler and gentler era!

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There will be ironies if the Democratic Party and left manage to destroy themselves during this election. They could have looked at the overall strategic situation and said “You know, we lost the roll of the dice on this one. Bush was President during 9/11, we’re at war, and it is more important to support the President than to win an election. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. Americans get tired of having one party in the White House after awhile, and we’ll get back in there. For now, let’s run a decent campaign, like Dole did in 1996, and be as helpful as we can to assure victory in this war.” If they’d done this, they’d probably have a great shot in ’08. If there were agreement on the importance of victory, ’08 would come down to a choice of personality and domestic policies. But, alas, the Democrats prefer a failing (I hope!) kamikaze attack.