IN FOR A DIME, in for a dollar. Anyway, there is no accountability for columnists. So assume that Governor Bush is elected president, just as readers of this column have been advised since spring. This will be no tame blame game. Gore supporters will dump on Clinton for being Clinton, Hillary for arrogance, the centrist Democratic Leadership Council for trying to pull the party righter than it wanted to go, and Ralph Nader for stealing liberal votes and for pulling the Gore campaign left.
Losers say that.
He will be fuming because for all the talk of legacy, he may now end up as President Parentheses, the sex guy who inhabited the White House between the Bushes, possibly facing more legal trouble than he would have under President Gore. His real legacy, that he did move the Democratic party from left to center-left, may well be in tatters for yet another decade. The Naderites will blame Clinton and Gore for having taken the party too far right. Expect him to set up a serious Third Party of the Left. For Republicans, happiness is a divided opposition.