"Let's call John Kerry's loss in 2004 what it is: the luckiest thing to happen to Democrats in 40 years."

Writes David W. Rohde in TNR:

[Kerry] would have faced a Republican Congress substantially weighted against him and hell-bent on disrupting his legislative agenda....

[T]he Bush administration survived, and the public grew increasingly disenchanted with its performance and the Republican brand....

It is difficult to predict precisely how events would have unfolded. For example, opinions of Bush suffered greatly from his handling of Hurricane Katrina; perhaps Kerry's approach would have been a big boost. Also, the situation in Iraq might have been very different, and that could have affected election results and governance....

The situation in Iraq? You mean the war John Kerry was hell-bent on losing for us? Can we have a little detail on that point? Rodhe is so hot to promote the Democratic Party that he paradoxically must abandon his best argument that Kerry's loss was a lucky thing for the party: most likely, Kerry would have lost the war, and the "situation" in Iraq in 2008 would have been chaotic and ugly, leading American voters to lurch toward the Republicans.

IN THE COMMENTS: Meade said:

Heheheh...she said lurch.

Ha ha: