Abstract

The Goldwater Parallel

The author argues that U.S. Democrats have a chance at winning the 2004 presidential election, despite the conventional wisdom that the candidate perceived to be the strongest in defense and national security will win. According to polls most see U.S. President George W. Bush as successfully prosecuting the war on terror and view the Republicans as stronger on national security than the Democrats. However important healthcare and the economy are to voters, the Democrats must change this perception in order to win. Some answers were suggested at a two-day conference on alternative national security strategies in Washington in October. The major themes of the conference were that the Bush Administration has made a radical break with the historic principles of American foreign policy, that it is failing to meet the challenges of 9/11 and that it is weakening the United States abroad and undermining democracy at home. James Traub, a journalist who attended the conference, reported that the antiwar rhetoric of Dean, Clark--and then Kerry--had caused considerable dismay among some Democratic strategists. Traub concluded, the winner may lose the general election as George McGovern did in 1972 because, as Bill Clinton once observed, "strong and wrong beats weak and right." Yet what is missing from the cold war history of hawks triumphant is that in 1964 Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater in a landslide.