 By Michael Reagan December 11, 2003
The GOP's main goal in 2004 is to win big in the presidential and senate races. That's obvious. What's less obvious is how they hope to get there. Basically, what they want is Dean to be the Democrat presidential nominee in 2004 because they see him as the 2004 version of Walter Mondale, who also said he wanted to raise taxes when he ran in 1980 against my father. He promptly went down in a humiliating defeat. There is still a lot of talk about Hillary or Al Gore running this year as vice presidential candidates which of course is just plain silly. Hillary is not going to be Howard Dean's vice presidential running mate. After all, if Dean accidentally won the election, she couldn't run for president in 2008 because Dean would certainly be a candidate for re-election that year. She'd have to wait until 2012 when she'll be older and less attractive. Moreover, Dean is out to clean the Clinton's clock and wrest control of the party from them. As a result, she doesn't want to do anything to help Dean because she wants him to lose so she can run in 2008. It's all very Byzantine, but that's the way Democrats think. And no matter what Bill and Hillary's lap dog candidate Gen. Wesley Clark says, Hillary is not going to consider being his or anybody else's running mate. And of course the whole thing is moot anyway because Wesley Clark is not going to be the Democrat candidate this or any other year. Now, for Al Gore. You have to understand that Gore did not endorse Dean so he could be what he's already been: Vice President. People do not run for the presidency and lose and then take a step backward to be vice president again. Besides, Al Gore certainly knows Dean will lose this year if he is the Democrat candidate. And that's what he wants to happen because he is also eyeing a run in 2008. Here's where it really gets Byzantine. By endorsing Howard Dean and joining forces with him to take party control away from the Clintons, he'll then have de facto control of the party and that will help him win the 2008 nomination over Hillary. What we are seeing now is a civil war taking place among the Democrats, and before it's over there will be pools of blood all over the place. They are proving once again that Will Rogers was right when he said that he belonged to no organized political party that he was a Democrat. The Republicans are hoping that all of the ungodly amount of money that they have spent in this present congress and the bigger the government has grown under President Bush, especially with the new Medicare entitlement now well in place, will turn into enough votes in this year to win a big enough majority in the Senate so they can squash the filibusters the Democrats have been using. Then they'll be able finally to redo Medicare the way it needs to be redone, and at last redo Social Security the way it needs to be redone, and get all the other things that need to be taken care of to get the nation back on the right track. In order to get there they had to gamble by spending vast amounts of money and giving entitlements to the elderly who vote in large numbers. That's their game plan. It's a gamble and we'll find out in November if the gamble pays off and they get the whopping majority in the Senate that will allow them to stave off those Democrat filibusters, get the judges approved, deal with Medicare and Social Security in a way that will save and strengthen both programs, and hopefully fix our ridiculous and ruinous tax system. To sum up, if the Republicans get their wishes fulfilled, Dean will win the nomination, take the control of his party away from the Clintons, lose the election and in the process drag down Democrat Senate candidates with him, thus helping the GOP win a big majority in the Senate. Iraq then becomes the only
question mark for 2004 but the economy is going well, job growth
is back and historically we don't change presidents in the middle
of a war.  mereagan@hotmail.com Mike's column is distributed to subscribers for publication by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc.
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