The Coming Republican Surge

Back in early May, James Carville gleefully published a book entitled 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation.

In part, an extended rant against George W. Bush and his administration, it also purported to show that “the Republicans are going to keep getting spanked again and again for forty more years because we’re right and they’re wrong, and Americans know it.”

Of course, Carville added, “the Republicans have been down before, and the Democrats have won Congress before, and we’ve still managed to lose.” But, he continued, “this time we strung our policies together into a coherent, appealing narrative. And we did it with the help of the historically diverse, historically Democratic young people who will be the foundation for a lasting Democratic majority.”

This may have seemed a plausible claim late in 2008 or early in 2009 — when the ragin’ Cajun sent off his book to Simon & Schuster. By the time of publication, however, the Republicans in Congress had shown that they still had some fight in them, and the Tea-Party Movement had already made its appearance.

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