You know how there is "fan fic", where people take off from say the "real" Harry Potter universe and write new stories involving the same characters. Well, I think you might have a future doing that with the Democrats. It takes about $150 million to run for President, and Nobel prize or not, I don't know who is going to give the Goreacle that kind of money. If he does win the prize (and they might do it just to stick it to W), it will be a 3 day story in the news, some fodder for columnists, and then it will be back to our regularly scheduled programming. I think Dem voters see Gore, like Kerry, as a loser whose time is passed, and nothing can change that. But it is interesting to think about. :)
Actually, if we want to think about a combination that would really be great for America in terms of moving us forward and getting things done, how about Bloomberg/Obama. Bloomberg could take the rational/results-oriented approach to hard problems that he has in NYC and Obama could give us all a collective hug and help provide a more inspiring meaning for the administration. And I do have the same fear that you (and our friend Neil) do, that Bush(4)-Clinton(8)-Bush(8)-Clinton? is an entirely disspirting sequence for most Americans to contemplate. More of the same, coming up.
In terms of the media's role, I really don't think I can say much about that with any confidence. I never watch the news on TV, get most of my news from the NYT, NPR and Jim Lehrer News Hour and most of my commentary from those sources plus The Economist, The New Yorker, Washington Post and a few blogs. Needless to say, a somewhat biased slice of the media universe. :) And since I don't have cable, I can't even learn about the MSM from their skewing on Colbert and The Daily Show.
With that as prologue, overall, I think the broadcast media (3 networks and CNN) tend to play it pretty safe, and probably have since the beginning of TV. They are a forum for the views of the 2 parties (so we can't blame them for not getting the Dems' message out when we don't have one), and try not to offend anyone so they can garner the largest audience possible. Before the Iraq War, both parties were for it along with 70% of the American people (IIRC), so the MSM's coverage was framed by that. The reason why we remember Murrow coming out against McCarthy and Cronkite against Vietnam is that those instances are so rare. (And even those two were hardly ahead of the curve.) But I'm willing to be convinced that I'm wrong. And we could have a robust future discussion on what a healthier media in a democracy would look like. There certainly are many other models around the world.
BTW, I see the immigration debacle differently that you. This was W's baby, and the Dems were happy to push it as it's good policy and very popular with one of our constituencies. But it's a hot button issue for a lot of noisy, core GOP voters, and GOP reps didn't see the benefit in carrying water for an unpopular lame duck President on an issue that their loudest constituents opposed. Amnesty for lawbreakers is bad. It's bad. Let's just hope than no one reminds us that Reagan dd exactly that. And, yes, that AG montage was depressing beyond words. He should just come out as gay so Bush would fire him already.
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It's precisely because Reagan agreed to amnesty, and the amnesty resulted only in even more illegal aliens, that amnesty strikes much of the right today as bad public policy. It's an ex ante versus ex post problem, to the extent one believes illegal aliens are problematic.
Well, immigration is one of the trickiest issues around. It cuts across parties and it puts a lot of values/interests at odds - the story we tell about ourselves, respect for law and order, with lots of question marks around the real economic impact and the probable result of any changes. Lots and lots of Americans have always been anti-immigrant, so it's a bit dubious to claim that the majority of opponents to this bill are purely motivated by the perceived impact of the '86 legislation. (Is anyone aware of any '86 era polling on the topic?) Impossible to prove, but I believe that if Bush had tried to do this in early 2003 with his popularity and power higher, it would have gone through.
BTW, a quick search returned this Cato report on American attitudes towards immigration, which, to my eyes at least, shows a high degree of consistency pre-1986 and post-1986.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-imopi.html
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