Things are starting to look bad for the Democrats -- so bad that they are looking like Republicans did just a couple of years ago.
In Massachusetts the race to fill Teddy Kennedy's seat has closed to within single digits -- something that most people would have thought to be impossible in the People's Republic. What is more, the nerves of Massachusetts Democrats are starting to fray. The Boston Globe has actually started to criticize the Democratic candidate, Martha Coaxley [here]. In Michigan John Cherry, front-runner for the Democratic nomination for governor, has ended his campaign because he cannot raise enough money [here]. Think of that, a liberal Democrat couldn't raise money in Michigan. And Senate stalwarts Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd are both retiring rather than face almost certain humiliation in the fall elections [here]. In Colorado Democrat incumbent Governor Bill Ritter is also calling it quits [here]. In New York former congresscritter Harold Ford, Jr. is plotting a challenge to incumbent Democratic Senator Kristin Gillibrand [here]. The pressure is getting so intense that Nancy Pelosi is sniping at President Obama [here].
All of this has come as a total surprise to the national political class and the MSM. They had watched the revolt taking shape, first against George H. W. Bush in 1992, then against Clinton in 94, then against Dubya in the second term and didn't think it was targeted against them. They actually thought that the vote in 2008 was a ringing mandate for the Democrat agenda. It wasn't. It was the latest in a long series of voter protests against the leadership provided by our elite political class of both parties. The more perceptive among them [and that's really not saying much] like David Brooks have noticed that the natives are getting restless [here], but are totally oblivious to the content of their discontent. They just know that they don't like it.
I suspect that they will like what is coming at them in the next few years even less. The revolt has been building for a long time and it now appears that a reckoning is at hand.
The coming decade promises to be one of the most interesting in our nation's political history. Grab your hats, we're in for a bumpy ride.
