Think about it. They'll be another George W. Bush. There are a whole group of them who are waiting on the sidelines to be the Republican candidate for President next year.
And think also about how we spend so much of our time wringing our hands over defining ourselves: progressive vs. populist vs. liberal, etc. While it's fun and interesting to do, we're missing the real target that has brought us to where we are in this country -- conservatism.
George Lakoff, of the Rockridge Institute and a messenger himself on framing the issues, makes a pretty good argument for redirecting our anger and disgust away from Bush (who's merely one person, albeit the "decider") to the concept of conservatism that has so miserably failed our country.
You know that political trick of "defining your opponent" before he defines himself -- just look what they've done to the word Liberal! Well, I think we need to start catching up (unfortunately belatedly) now by clearly defining what conservatism is and how it has hurt our country and how how it will hurt our future and our children's future.
Lakoff's tenets of conservatism:
1. Individual initiative, that is minimal government outside of the military: the lack of response to Katrina, the initiative to privatize Social Security, massive deficits to rid the country of its non-military government programs, etc.
2. The President is the moral authority: our continual military participation in "spreading democracy", the destruction of our constitutional rights (removal of habeas corpus for "suspected" terrorists comes to mind... and that could be you or me, if the "decider" decides you are)
3. Free markets are enough to foster freedom and opportunity: the destruction of the environment.
I can think of initiative after initiative, program after program, legislation after legislation as examples of failed conservative efforts. Think about it and add your own examples to the tenets.
Then think how you can start now (during the campaign season) attributing all of the failures over the last six years not to George Bush but to the very heart of the failures: conservatism. The word and concept has been around since history began. It's not about Bush, right wing nuts, the religious right....it's about conservatism!
Let's start making the American public fear the "C" word!
The problem/dilema, politically, is bigger than Bush and the challenge to the Democrats is to effectively demonstrate to the voters the failures, disasters, and destruction that conservatism brings to America.
Conservatives have defined "liberal" (a synonym now for Democrat, progressive, populist, etc.) as an evil policy or an evil person. But this administration has been incredibly successful in demonstrating just "why conservatism doesn't work". Now we need to go with that reality and tie every conservative candidate to the failure of that ideology!