The cycle begins anew

Eight years ago, just after the election of "W" brought an end to the Clinton era, Republican strategists were talking of creating a "permanent Republican majority" voting bloc. To listen to their premature triumphalism, the future belonged to the pachyderms.

Of course, pursuing a course of "pragmatic conservatism" (which was, frankly, neither) ensured the GOP alienated its most loyal supporters, who suddenly found themselves having no clear choice other than between Big Government and Big Government-lite. Now that core of voters is looking for a new home, having concluded the GOP is no longer worth their support.

You'd think the Democrats would learn from this tendency to read too much into one election. You'd be wrong, as the writing of one of their leading lights, James Carville, demonstrates:

The Republican party, now an at all-time low in popularity, has lost a generation of voters. In 2008, a new Democratic majority has emerged with young voters at the helm. It is a majority that will continue for 40 more years.

Perhaps his post-election optimism is more justified than was Karl Rove's in 2000. As Carville points out, demographic trends favor the Democrats. But for many of those new, young voters, the idealistic promises of paternal government have been a hypothetical dream, without the responsibility of messy reality.

After a few years' taste of what it takes to implement HopeChange^TM, they may be ready to join the alienated Republicans in the search for a governing philosophy (and a party) that will leave them alone to work things out for themselves. Time will tell.