Dick Morris Sees the Future

David Weigel | January 31, 2007

The American Spectator just held a conservative journalists' breakfast with Dick Morris, the former (very former) Clinton advisor and a current St. George to Hillary Clinton's dragon. He's working on an anti-Hillary film (which he describes as a "swift-boating" project), for example, which will be the third explictly anti-Hillary product he's released in four years. Despite this, he's absolutely convinced that the GOP will blow it and Hillary will win.

I think what's going to happen in the world is that Hillary's going to be the next president. I think she'll be the world's worst president. I think Republicans will get massacred in Congress in the '08 election, massacred. But then I think in '10 they'll take Congress back because I think that Hillary will give the Republican party in 2010 the same gift she gave them in 1994. And then I think Hillary will be defeated '12, but I think that will be the last Republican president we'll ever see, because I think at that point the Hispanic and the black vote become so large, and the Hispanics I think now are irretrievable anyway.

This is not incredibly surprising; this kind of talk pays Morris's mortgage. What was a little surprising was the sense of soul-crushing doom radiating from the conservative journalists and activists sitting around the table.* The idea of the Iraq "surge" actually working was brought up only as a hypothetical. It was taken for granted that Hillary would beat Obama in the primary, bring him on as a running mate, and defeat whomever the Republicans coughed up. Mitt Romney was generally dismissed as a flip-flopper. There wasn't a lot of disagreement with Morris's claim that the 2006 immigration fight killed Republican chances of winning the Hispanic vote. (Morris compared it to the effect of the 1964 Goldwater nomination with black voters, souring them on the GOP for generations.) Most of the room thought McCain would lose the nomination, which, actually, should count as optimism.

Morris saw the room for a Bush comeback, though, in the buildup to a conflict with Iran.

Iran, which I think is going to be the looming international crisis over the next year, dwarfing Iraq - the only way to distract Americans from four deaths a day is a nuclear war - I think that as Iran develops its nuclear capability and moves toward that, I think that bush can do a huge amount by echoing the Gaffney disinvestterror.org stuff. Like I'd like to see a conference of all the mutual funds in the United States, to discuss how to disinvest terror. Administrators of state pension funds about how to implement the disinvestterror.org, and really lead a national effort to cut off funding for Iran, and I think he can very successful in doing that. Those kinds of steps could repair his approval rating to the point where at least he's viable.

Well. At least he doesn't think Condi will run for president anymore. Oh, and for a sense of what conservatives think of Ron Paul... Morris ran down the "pygmies" in the Republican race and left out Paul completely. When James G. Poulos mentioned Paul, voices piped up asking if he was running as a Republican (he is ) and Morris thought he was the guy who ran against John Boehner for majority leader (he wasn't).

*Here's my unpopular prediction, which differed from the room's CW: The war in Iraq will continue to deteriorate, Hillary will continue to let the issue eat away at her support, the battle over the surge will wound her even more, white liberals in Iowa will give their caucus to Obama, and Obama will brawl his way to a convention that nominates Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his running mate.

Comments

|1.31.07 @ 11:21AM|#

Not really on topic, but:

A U.S. Marine squad was marching north of Fallujah when they came upon an Iraqi terrorist, badly injured and unconscious. On the opposite side of the road was an American Marine in a similar but less serious state.The Marine was conscious and alert and as first aid was given to both men, the squad leader asked the injured Marine what had happened.
The Marine reported, "I was heavily armed and moving north along the hiway here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent.
We saw each other and both took cover in the ditches along the road. I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein was a miserable lowlife, and he yelled back that Ted Kennedy is a good-for-nothing, fat, left wing liberal drunk."
"So I said that Osama Bin Laden dresses and acts like a frigid, angry lesbian!"
He retaliated by yelling, "Oh yeah, well so does Hillary Clinton!"
"And, there we were, in the middle of the road, shaking hands, when a truck hit us!"

Warren|1.31.07 @ 11:22AM|#

Hillary will be the D candidate. Nothing short of death or felony conviction can change that. Her speed dial is far too great an advantage for anyone to overcome.

|1.31.07 @ 11:22AM|#

Bold move to make a prediction this early, Weigel. I'm impressed. I think everyone should make one as well, so we can look back and see how wrong everyone was. Here's mine;

Dems Pres/Vice Pres

Edwards/Mark Warner

Republican Pres/Vice Pres

Guiliani/Gilmore


Yes, two ex Virginia Governors. And yes, Edwards is our next President. You heard it here first.

|1.31.07 @ 11:27AM|#

Hail Hillbama!

thoreau|1.31.07 @ 11:31AM|#

Wait, Dick Morris, a professional campaign advisor, is predicting that the person he's campaigning against will win?

That's probably not the best way to drum up business. Just a thought.

|1.31.07 @ 11:35AM|#

I predict McCain courts the religious right and obfuscates on Iraq, winning the Republicans.

Hillary's smear machine crushes Obama, and wins the Democrats.

Half the country holds its nose and votes McCain out of Hillaryhate.

4 years of utter disasters, and failures to completely Iraqize, later, McCain is routed in 2012 by Obama.

|1.31.07 @ 11:38AM|#

Hey so all predictions are pretty grim for libertarians huh?
Hillary, Guliani, Edwards, they all suck horribly.

What about the hispanic vote making republicans a permanent minority? How statistically libertarian are they?

|1.31.07 @ 11:44AM|#

Kwais, I get the general impression that much of the Hispanic community tends to possess an excellent work ethic, resulting in being economically libertarian, but are socially conservative due to a predominance of Catholic belief and a culture of machismo.

|1.31.07 @ 11:44AM|#

"Hillary's going to be the next president. I think she'll be the world's worst president."

That is a mighty high hurdle. Particularly as the current titleholder has two more years to entrench himself.

|1.31.07 @ 11:47AM|#

Political predictions are always pretty grim for libertarians, at least on a National scale.

|1.31.07 @ 11:48AM|#

The GOP could hold a share of the hispanic vote if it could get rid of its "anti-immigrant" ravers, which hispanic voters perceive to be anti-hispanic, which it mostly is.

Otherwise, the GOP "family values" card would play very well with hispanic voters, who are mostly strong Roman Catholics.

Bhh|1.31.07 @ 11:53AM|#

I never thought Hillary was electable but if the Republicans continue to collapse into a sinkhole of Iraq and restless fundies, anything is possible.

Funny how they were going to run the US for a generation a few years ago, now they look like a podunk regional religious party.

I thought maybe the grownups would be taking the wheel at some point here.

William R|1.31.07 @ 11:55AM|#

Why on earth does anyone listen to toe sucking Dick Morris. Hispanics. The man is on Vincent Fox's payroll. His job is to push Mexicans north. But low and behold, all those anti hispanic initiatives on the ballot in Arizona in November of 2006 got 50 percent of the Latino vote. The truth is, the GOPs share of the vote declined across all ethnic groups. Even among white males.

I've got news for the tow sucker, poor uneducated Mexicans aren't going to be voting for candidates that want to cut the capital gains tax. They'll vote for the candidates proposing the most welfare giveaways. Importing poor people only grows government. Milton Friedman knew it. Ron Paul knows it. The enlightened individuals that run Reason still haven't figured it out.

|1.31.07 @ 11:57AM|#

Prediction based on experience:

Dick Morris is wrong.

Almost doesn't matter what the subject is. He makes bold predictions every day; most turn out to be wrong. His big prediction on Condi is already obviously wrong. During the last years of Clinton's presidency, Morris was on with Hannity every day making predictions, very few of which came true.

If you could bet $$$$ against his predictions, you could make big money. That's a prediction you can count on.

|1.31.07 @ 11:59AM|#

How can Dick Morris realistically sell himself as a political advisor when he's unclear on who's who in the House of Representatives? Honestly, none of these "experts" bother to know anything they didn't hear at a cocktail party.

Rolodexes alone don't get you the nomination. Someone keeps saying that, but anyone at this level of politics has plenty of friends to reach out to. Hilary scores well among white liberal middle-class women. That's about it. Even white liberal middle-class men are only civil about her when their wives are around. Obama has very low negatives and he has outsider status in a country that has a lot of contempt for its political class at the moment.

I honestly don't expect Jim Webb to be a senator for very long. He's wasted there. If he doesn't get picked as the Democratic running mate he will be the Secretary of Defense in the next administration. "Obama/Webb" makes a hell of a lot of political sense. I don't think Obama can get away with putting a little-known state-level politician on the ballot with him and I think it would cripple his presidency in any case. The executive branch is an extremely complicated piece of machinery at this point and you don't want to go up there without someone who's been there before.

ed|1.31.07 @ 12:07PM|#

Morris is a toad.
I walk around toads and try never to touch them.
And I never, ever listen to them.

|1.31.07 @ 12:13PM|#

I gave up any pretense of being able to make sense or predict what primary voters would do when Bush beat McCain in 2000. On one side was a war-hero who could win votes across the aislea and had done so for many years, on the other hand a pampered incompetent with an alcohol problem and inability to speak in public. And Bush won on the idea that he was MORE ELECTABLE. I gave up. Now I think if you want to know who will win any GOP nomination it is a formula combining the amount of one's war chest and the number of times candidate mentions Jesus.

|1.31.07 @ 12:17PM|#

On reflection I should have given up in 92. To this day I can't believe Clinton, a draft-dodging Southern-corruption with proven and public infidelity candidate beat Al Gore, who again at the time had appeal across the aisle, experience, served in Vietnam, etc...
I'm not saying any of the things that I listed are so important for me, but any one of the problems that Bush or Clinton had would sink many a candidate. So I plainly give up in guessing how such a fickle public will make up its mind.

|1.31.07 @ 12:23PM|#

I guarantee that whoever wins in '08 will really suck from the libertarian perspective. And beyond that, who really gives a shit?

|1.31.07 @ 12:24PM|#

Ken: Clinton's more charismatic than any President for a long time. When you have someone with that kind of power of personality and that kind of eloquence, your rational considerations go out the window. I mean, he convinced Monica to let him **** her with a cigar, what the hell?

Also, he beat out Al "internet-inventor" Gore. That's not quite as hard as outelectabling John McCain circa 2000.

|1.31.07 @ 12:33PM|#

Hey Thoreau, dunno if your being sarcastic, but predicting Hillary will win is a great way to drum up biz for Morris. Just saying President HC on Fox news is like letting a black adder run loose on the set. People start climbing the fucking walls. And there is Dick to take her down, if people will only buy his book/movie/8mm snuff films and spread the word.

|1.31.07 @ 12:33PM|#

Republicans assume that the Democrats work the same way they do.

A Republican with the institutional support of Hillary Clinton would be a shoo-in.

But Mrs. Clinton isn't running for the Republican nomination. Cripes, Bill Bradley had a real chance of taking the nomination from Gore in 2000.

|1.31.07 @ 12:50PM|#

ChrisO,

Either Hillary or Obama would be a vast improvement from a libertarian perspective.

|1.31.07 @ 12:54PM|#

saying President HC on Fox news is like letting a black adder run loose on the set.

A cunning plan indeed.

|1.31.07 @ 1:00PM|#

Ken and jb, Abert Gore, Jr. did not run for president at the same time as Bill Clinton. Gore ran in 1988 and 2000; Clinton, in 1992 and 1996. The two have never run against each other.

Franklin Harris|1.31.07 @ 1:01PM|#

Dick Morris is the Sylvia Brown of politics.

|1.31.07 @ 1:04PM|#

"Hillary's going to be the next president. I think she'll be the world's worst president."

That is a mighty high hurdle. Particularly as the current titleholder has two more years to entrench himself.

No, you misread it. He meant she'll be the worst president in the world - i.e. worse than Horst Kohler, Moshe Katsav, Vladimir Putin, Jacques Chirac, etc, etc.

thoreau|1.31.07 @ 1:12PM|#

Matt-

Snakes on a set?

Seriously, the way I read the post, he was saying that she'll win despite his best efforts. Not a great way to drum up business. OTOH, if he said that he has the only strategy that can defeat her, that is a more promising ad. It's the difference between saying "Even I will fail" vs. "I'm the only one who can succeed."

|1.31.07 @ 1:21PM|#

"Either Hillary or Obama would be a vast improvement from a libertarian perspective."

Maybe from a 'liberaltarian' perspective. But as an 'economic' libertarian--no, they'd be disasters from my perspective. Not sayin' that whoever the GOP spits up will be much better on issues of economic liberty.

Klintron|1.31.07 @ 1:57PM|#

Hispanics are not a homogeneous voting bloc, they have as diverse a range of opinions and concerns as anyone else. They are not single issue voters and immigration is not their top priority. Further info:

http://www.ndn.org/hispanic/HSCpoll.html

http://pewhispanic.org/newsroom/releases/release.php?ReleaseID=14

That said, they also obviously don't like the extremist policies that the GOP were pushing last year. Like the voting population at large, Hispanics can probably be thought of as "moderates."

|1.31.07 @ 2:39PM|#

It's way to early to say what will happen with the Obama candidacy. People are only in love with the guy because they know nothing about him. Kind of like the Perot factor early on in '92 - before people realized he was batshit insane.

If I had to guess I would say Hillary gets the nomination but who knows. If I had to put money on it, I'd say Giuliani is the next President. He'll have to get through the primaries of course, but if he does, I don't see Hillary beating him.

|1.31.07 @ 3:05PM|#

I still doubt Hillary can win the nomination. Once we're really into the meat of the campaign (you know, in a year), democrats are going to really wrestle with the idea of nominating a woman who comes out of the gate with 40% of the population saying they'd never, ever vote for her come hell or high water.

TLB|1.31.07 @ 3:43PM|#

William R beats me to the punch: The man is on Vincent Fox's payroll.

I don't know if he's still on the payroll, but he definitely was at one time.

As I've pointed out on my site (which has a search function), Morris is a complete idiot. His CW about the HispanicVote just provides more evidence of that.

First, not allHispanics support open borders. Those that do include those on the far-left and racial groups, and none of those will ever give the GOP the time of day. It also includes those who can't vote. And, it includes those who marched in our streets, making a show of force.

Morris wants to capitulate to foreign citizens marching in our streets and stupidly thinks the GOP should reach out to those who have an ideology completely incompatible with not only the GOP's ideology but with what's in the best interests of the U.S.

He is, in brief, a complete idiot.

|1.31.07 @ 4:16PM|#

I agree that Rep vs. Dem is pretty much a wash on economic issues, but either Dem candidate would be much better on social issues than their Republican counterpart.

|1.31.07 @ 4:44PM|#

Hispanics don't run screaming from the Republicans because they disagree with them on Policies X, Y, and Z. The run screaming from the Republicans because they perceive them to be anti-Hispanic bigots.

Border-security proposals, well presented, can gain Hispanic support, but that's not remotely the same thing as saying that Hispanics are OK with the anti-immigration campaigns Republicans are actually running.

Most black voters in inner cities support long prison sentences for violent offenders. Nonetheless, they ran screaming into the arms of Mike Dukakis after the Willy Horton ad, because it was a blatant pander to racism.

After the ugly '06 campaigns waged by anti-immigrant Republicans, it's going to be a long time before the GOP recovers its standing among Latino voters.

|1.31.07 @ 4:50PM|#

Dick Morris, although in the past has been a skilled consultant, is always changing his mind back and forth all the freaking time. There is no real need to put any stock in anything he says. He is only famous because the Clinton's hired him way back when he first was running for Governor of Arkansas. The Clinton's kicked him to the curb time and time again. They brought him back, but I think that to give him a bunch of credit for saving Clinton in '82 and then in '96 is retarded. The Clinton's have enough political skill all on their own without his help. Morris is a bit eccentric anyway. Usually the bolder and more unusual of a prediction a person makes, no matter what it's about, tend to be wrong the most. There are too many unknown variables to make any kind of long term predictions beyone 2008.

TLB|2.1.07 @ 1:31PM|#

The run screaming from the Republicans because they perceive them to be anti-Hispanic bigots.

That perception is almost always wrong. And, that perception is also self-inflicted in some cases, with, for instance, sleazeballs like ChrisCannon smearing members of his party because unlike him they don't support massive IllegalImmigration. That perception is also encouraged by those far-left groups I mentioned above. Instead of taking them on, KarlRove panders to them at the same time as they're funding anti-American extremist groups.

|2.1.07 @ 2:18PM|#

A recent Gallop Poll shows that a majority of Democrats won't vote for Hillary in the primaries if they feel she can't win the general election. There are so many people like myself who would not vote for her under any circumstances, the most recent poll being 38%. That means she has to carry over 80% of the remaining voters to barely eek out a victory. After 8 years out of the White House, the Democrats are hungry to elect a President and they won't want to nominate somebody who will be a sure loser.

|2.1.07 @ 2:39PM|#

"Either Hillary or Obama would be a vast improvement from a libertarian perspective."

Why would a libertarian consider people who want to bring Euopean style socialism to this country an improvement?

|2.1.07 @ 4:51PM|#

How can anyone usurp this current idiot to become the "worst president" we've ever seen? This guy has set that bar so freakin' high, that I find it amusing that Republicans even think they can again challenge someone as being: (1) terriblel; and (2) unqualified for the office.
Also, if someone told me that if the Republicans were in charge of all branches from now until 2012 and that after that we never again saw a Republican President or controlled branch of government, I'd take that few years' of continued persecution for the remaining lifetime of an America closer to what it's supposed to be: a Land of the People and for all the people, not just the affluent as it is under these thieves.

|2.1.07 @ 4:53PM|#

I'm also loving the whole Al "invented the internet" Gore nonsense on this thread. The moron that posted that needs to stop listening to right wing hate radio and think for himself by reading what "really" happened.

|2.4.07 @ 4:28PM|#

I predict Gore-Obama winning against Guliani-Rice.