When Earl Weaver was manager of the Baltimore Orioles he would charge at umpires shouting, “Are you gonna get any better, or is this it?” Many Democrats, weary of watching the Democratic Party flounder in presidential competition, are ready to rise up and shout like that.
During the last forty years, the party’s fall has been long and hard. Democratic presidential candidates have won a majority of the popular vote only twice in the last ten elections. Beginning with 1952, Republicans have dominated Democrats in electoral votes 3,245 to 1,518. Since Eisenhower entered politics, the Democrats have lost six of nine elections and received 12 per cent fewer popular votes than the Republicans. Just under one-quarter of today’s electorate was eligible to vote in 1952. That means three-quarters have voted only in what is, at the presidential level, a Republican era.
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