It’s Hard To Be A Democrat …

… at least out of power. One of the highest, and least appreciated, costs of being the “out” party is that, without letting on, it has to hope things go badly — in the war, with the economy, everywhere — so people will want to throw the “in” party out. Thus the out party’s enirely natural and predictable inclination to regard bad news as good news and good news as bad news must be stoutly resisted, or at least disguised.

According to this article in Time, the nomination of Judge Alito has put a spotlight on this problem:

… like John Roberts, the Bush Supreme Court nominee who sailed through confirmation hearings in September, the unassuming, affable Alito is far from the partisan flamethrower Democrats were itching to fight over.

The fact that so many in the legal community, on both sides of the political aisle, laud Alito as a serious, fair legal thinker not given to overarching theories or ideological tantrums is bad enough for the Democrats. And his record of protecting freedom of expression doesn’t help matters. Also, it’s pretty hard to demonize a man who regularly donned a uniform when coaching Little League and once spent a week of vacation at the Philadelphia Phillies fantasy baseball camp. The White House, says Democratic strategist Joel Johnson, “has accomplished the task of getting beyond the base problem in a way that has not completely lit the opposition on fire.” A disappointed Democrat summed up the problem this way: “He’s a nice guy, and he doesn’t drool.”

But wait! Maybe there’s still hope! Being a nice guy who doesn’t drool may make it difficult to paint Judge Alito as “outside the mainsteram,” but since all the Dems know that conservatives are not nice guys and do drool, maybe they can separate him from his “base.”

Dreams die hard….

Say What?