A Cleansing Election

Gergen: This election is about the sensible center resurrecting itself and wanting to be heard. Republicans ought to be paying attention to that. They also have to make a fundamental decision about Iraq. There are two alternatives: escalate or disengage. Had the Republicans miraculously saved the House, I'm persuaded that they would have gone for escalation. There were numbers floating around Washington on the order of 100,000 more troops for Iraq. But having lost, the president still doesn't seem prepared to move toward disengagement. Disengaging would mean that by the end of his watch, Iraq could be even more of a shambles than it is now -- and that's his legacy.

How is the Republican candidate in 2008 going to distance himself from that legacy? Do they disavow Bush, or do they have to embrace his record?
Hart: I don't know that there will be anybody who runs in 2008 as a George Bush Republican. It's more a question of whether the right wing of the party can find an accommodation with a GOP candidate like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani or outgoing Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

Gergen: I agree with that. I think this election complicates the Republican search for a candidate in 2008. McCain went into this election as the strongest person in the party, the man who could beat anybody in either party in a national election. And in the next couple of years, he could emerge as the major dealmaker on Capitol Hill. He's the person who could build a bipartisan majority with Joe Lieberman on climate change and with Teddy Kennedy on immigration. If both of those bills get through in this next Congress and he's seen as the person who produced that, it will work in his favor. But it's going to be very hard for him to accept anything less than victory in Iraq, and he's likely to be increasingly isolated in the politics of what's coming. People want to start closing the book on the past and start looking at new people, new blood, new faces -- and that does not work in his favor.

Hart: McCain is the clear front-runner. His path is enormously complicated not only by this election and what role he will play in the upcoming Congress but also by his age and temperament. He could easily be the Howard Dean scream of 2008 -- one remark replayed a thousand times that essentially changes everything. Giuliani also has tremendous appeal out there, but his positions on social issues are antithetical to the Republican core. The most intriguing GOP candidate right now is Romney -- he has a real potential to emerge.

What about the Democrats -- how does this election affect Hillary Clinton?
Hart: One of the elements that comes out of this election is that voters are looking for authenticity. Clinton is one of the smartest people, but I'm not sure she comes across as genuine. She's seen more as calculating. She is the decided front-runner, but there are an awful lot of Democrats who are wondering if she can win. By contrast, I think Barack Obama is the most intriguing candidate for 2008. In my lifetime, only one other candidate approaches him, and that's Robert Kennedy. He has that same magnetism that attracts people to him. The issue for him -- indeed, for every Democrat post-9/11 -- is not going to be race but experience. Democrats are more likely to look in what I call the middle circle of tested people, whether it's a Joe Biden or an Al Gore or a John Edwards, rather than the outer circle of an Evan Bayh or a Tom Vilsack or a Bill Richardson, people who have never really been tested.

Gergen: A funny thing happened on the way to this election. Six months ago, all of us would have assumed that the day after this election was over, the clear front-runner would be Hillary Clinton. Instead, we woke up the day after the election with Democrats shopping. They're not certain yet. In a place like Iowa, there's a lot more talk about Barack Obama than there is about Hillary Clinton. It's much more fluid than we ever expected.

Where do Gore and Edwards stand?
Hart: If it's not Hillary, they become exceptionally formidable. Edwards has a very good ear for where America is at -- he's been the best politician on post-Katrina. Gore had probably the best 2006 of any Democrat, with the exception of Barack Obama.

Gergen: Gore is the sleeper candidate. If it's not Clinton or Obama, he's the guy. He's a very powerful and attractive candidate, because he has the gravitas and the experience, he can handle the international stage, he's made the environmental issue his own, and he was right on the war. He's the guy in waiting, but he has to find a way in.

The youth vote was up from twenty percent in 2002 to twenty-four percent this year. What do you make of that?
Gergen: That's very important. This election was one of the healthiest exercises of democracy we've had in a long time. The Republicans were held accountable. Had the Republicans -- after mismanaging the war, after mismanaging Katrina, after allowing all these scandals to creep up -- had they still won, the degree of cynicism, especially among the young, would be enormous. The younger generation would feel, "It doesn't make any difference, politics is a corrupt game, you can't have your voice heard." This election, more than any in the last fifteen years, has given the younger generation a sense that if you get out there, you can make a difference. An entire younger generation was rejecting politics. They wanted social change, but they didn't see politics as a way to achieve it. Now there's hope.

When all is said and done, how will Bush be remembered politically?
Hart: The Bush presidency will be at the bottom of the heap, period. It will be not only a presidency without accomplishments but a presidency that put America on the wrong track. This is an administration that knew how to play politics but didn't understand the sweep of history. The next administration and the administration after that will be digging out from everything that Bush has left us in. Iraq, civil liberties, human rights, basic domestic policies -- in each and every case, they played the political card rather than the American card.