The post-2004 election thumbsuckers about how Rovian Republicans were going to rule America forever were part of a truly weird genre. Everybody - including most liberals - really failed to notice that, whatever you though of him or his campaign, Big John came really close to winning that election. Bush was still fairly popular, the Iraq war hadn't totally gone to shit in popular perception, the economy was ok, and still John Kerry almost unseated an incumbent. Yes, he lost, but it wasn't like Mondale or Dukakis. There really wasn't any reason to think that election told us anything about the future of either party in terms of popularity.
