Thinking of Hillary and the Republicans

That's what Harold Meyerson got me doing this morning with his Republicans at a Loss in today's Washington Post.

I am far from the greatest Hilary fan. But Meyerson gave me the idea that Hilary might just be a better candidate than I ever thought. Here is what Meyerson wrote:

Rudy Giuliani, campaigning hard to convince the Republican base to overlook his heresies on such cultural hot buttons as abortion rights, seeks to win over the faithful by claiming the mantle of Hillary-Basher Club Champion. A tax credit for parents struggling to pay their children's college tuition? Matching funds for 401(k)s? Baby bonds? Crazy notions all, not because of their substance -- Rudy can't be bothered with their substance -- but because they were proposed by -- get this -- Hillary! The GOP crowds roar.

Ok, if Hillary does propose substantive ideas which will benefit the country what will be the electorate's reaction when the Republican's only response is some variation of Hillary proposed it, Hillary is evil, therefore the proposal is evil?

I also want to point out the following paragraph. Mr. Meyerson captures an idea that I have been working on and expresses it much better than I have managed.

"What the Republican field fails to realize is that the America that Goldwater and Reagan defended against the presumed predations of government no longer exists. When Barry and Ronnie walked the earth, most Americans had enduring relations with their employers (ensured, in many cases, by a union contract), and their employers often provided them with health benefits and a pension. Most banks and corporations had not yet traded in their American citizenship for a new global identity that places millions of Americans' jobs and pay levels in competition with those of billions of workers in distant climes."

Yes, the world has changed from when what was good for GM was good for America. Those not from Anderson (or Muncie or Marion), I suggest you come here and see those changes. Frankly, I suspect the same thing happened in the Sixties and Seventies to the Democratic Party. The world created by the Great Depression, World War Two and the Cold War was no longer the world of 1968-80. The Democratic Party of then lacked one quality of the Republican Party of today - the Republicans believe their ideology is Holy Writ.