NORTH CONWAY,
N.H. -- The year 2005 ended in an explosion of rain, snow, sleet,
ice, fog and, on Monday, even a few terrifying claps of thunder,
a reminder of how unpredictable is the climate in this state of
unpredictable politics. The forecast for 2006, according to the
almanacs the farmers consult, will be much the same. Unpredictability
is, when you think of it, especially easy to predict.
"God
made the country cold up here," Ernest Poole wrote in his
1946 classic "The Great White Hills of New Hampshire,"
and this time of year he is right, about God and about so much
else. Beyond that, no one can say what the heavens hold. Indeed,
it's impossible to discern what God has in mind for the political
world up here, which may be why this state retains its curious
hold on presidential politics. American politics is a story, and
a story requires some drama.
This year
the Democrats will examine new ideas about how to begin the presidential
political season in 2008, but my bet is that the Granite State
will retain its pre-eminence, if not in the calendar (there's
talk about inserting some new caucuses in the schedule, right
before New Hampshire) then surely in the minds of the great handicappers.
The men and women who would be president will still be found here
this year and next.
It is still
early in the process. So early that the cast for this drama is
not yet settled. So early that the story line can not even be
anticipated, that the points of tension (and there always are
some) are not yet established -- beyond, of course, Iraq. It now
seems as if Iraq will always be with us.
By this time
next year, the road ahead may be clear, or at least clearer. That
makes this year a vital one for the politics of New Hampshire
and of the country. Vital but, as you will see, not visual. A
lot will happen. Almost none of it will be seen. But the effects
of 2006 will be impossible to miss once 2007 arrives. That is
part of the mystery, and surely part of the mystique, of presidential
politics.
In this year
the important connections will be made, the important commitments
will be made, the important paths of communication will be established.
A rough pecking order of candidates will emerge, and so will a
rough outline of what the campaign will be about. There will be
plenty to do in 2008, of course, but no campaign will prosper
in 2008 that did not lay the groundwork for success in 2006. The
organizational part of the campaign begins now.
The people
who talk knowingly about the "permanent campaign" are
talking about the way Washington is governed, with presidents
operating out of the White House as if they were still campaigning
for the office. The campaign out in the states is virtually permanent
but different. Here the phrase "permanent campaign"
means that there is almost no time when a campaign is not on.
On the surface,
of course, there is no campaign on now. I went an entire week
without hearing an ad, or reading of a candidate's appearance,
or thinking about how something might play here in the North Country
or down in the cities or out by the Seacoast. A good thing, too.
No one could bear the sight of a campaign bus or an earnest conversation
over coffee about the direction of the country.
But the challenges
for 2006 are not merely organizational. They are intellectual,
too. Here is what has to be accomplished in the next dozen months:
1) The Republicans
have to decide whether to be Republicans or whether to be the
party of George W. Bush.
2) The Democrats
have to decide whether they have something to support or whether
they merely oppose anything the Republicans support.
3) The Republicans
have to decide whether religious conservatives are a part of the
party or whether religious conservatism represents the permanent
majority outlook of the party.
4) The Democrats
have to sort out whether they will let the Republicans define
"values" -- and by values we are talking about family
values and the definition of security -- or whether the Democrats
can define values of their own choosing in their own way.
5) The Republicans
must decide whether they are the party of restricting civil liberties
(the old Ashcroft wing of the GOP) or of protecting civil liberties
(the old Safire wing).
6) The Democrats
have to figure out whether they can assure the public that they
can protect the nation from terrorism and protect civil liberties
at the same time, and figure out a language for conveying how
to do it.
7) The Republicans
have to figure out how to govern and campaign at the same time,
especially if someone with close ties to the Congress (Sen. Bill
Frist of Tennessee, for example) or with close ties to the White
House (Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, for example) is the nominee or
is on the ticket.
8) The Democrats
have to figure out how to convince the public that they represent
the natural party of government, a status they had for decades
but that the Republicans have possessed since the Reagan era began.
9) The Republicans
have to decide how to campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton
without dredging up the Starr inquiry, which with the perspective
of time and through the prism of terrorism looks like a Cromwellian
distraction from another era.
10) The Democrats
have to decide how to deal with a presidential candidate whose
husband once held the White House (and once held them in thrall)
but whose politics are evolving in different, interesting ways.
11) The Republicans
have to sort out their conflicting feelings about Sen. John McCain
of Arizona and decide whether he is an apostate or an apostle.
12) The Democrats
have to figure out how to respond to a former prisoner of war
whose views on civil liberties, torture, special interests and
campaign finance are more clearly articulated and more nearly
congruent with their constituencies than theirs are.
That's a
lot for one year, but it's only the beginning of the year. "In
January now and then we have what is called a wicked night, black
and still, when with cracks like pistol shots the frost snaps
the branches of trees and jerks out nails in our thick walls,"
Mr. Poole wrote of a New Hampshire winter six decades ago. "Go
out of doors and the air will feel like a wall of ice, for it
is 40 or 50 below." Wicked nights and air like ice are good
for serious reflection, and that's what these dozen questions
-- the political challenges of 2006 -- require.
