Hanson Handicaps November: Advantage Rs

Proving once again that an education in the arts and sciences can pay off, classicist Victor Davis Hanson today offers a most trenchant analysis of November electoral prospects. Unlike just about every other person doing that, however, his is based not merely on the Republican rise in the generic Congressional preference polls or Bush's surging job approval figures. He's looking at circumstances and policies.

We quote briefly:

Democrats denounce the conduct of the war against terror. All well and good - but they also must explain how they would snatch Osama Bin Laden from his friendly tribes in Islamic and nuclear Pakistan. They rail against the Iraq war, but they cannot agree on when - not to mention whether - to depart. They lament appeasement of Iran, but they offer no military or political alternative to the ongoing multiparty negotiations.

The Democrats claim that Bush is not protecting us at home and is battling the wrong enemies abroad. But even of those sympathetic to such a message, how many believe that Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy are better suited to fight a war against terror? And where the president is vulnerable - illegal immigration, continual energy dependence, spiraling debt and profligate federal spending - the Democrats' solutions are even more at odds with public opinion.