Shields' take on 2008

Mark Shields offered some of his typically amusing and on-target observations about American political life during one of today's closing sessions of the Catholic Roundtable Social Ministry Gathering.

Some highlights:

On 2006 elections:
"2006 was not a Democratic victory. It was a stunning Republican defeat."

On covering the Republican primaries:
"I had to remind myself that the guy with three wives was not the Mormon . . . . I guess in this field Bill Clinton could run as the family values candidate."

On Obama:
"He is the most exciting in terms of candidate appeal since Robert Kennedy. He's the rare candidate who goes beyond the red-blue divide, and in 2008 the country desperately wants to break out of the red-blue paralysis."

On Hillary:
"She's been a good candidate in a bad campaign, but every campaign is a reflection of the candidate."

On party enthusiasm:
"One way to tell if a party is growing? Is it spending its time looking for converts or looking for heretics?" According to Shields, this year Republicans have spent most of their time looking for heretics. I think this parallel might also apply to the contemporary Catholic church in America.

On November:
"The question is not am I better off than I was four years ago, and it's not are you better off than you were four years ago, it's are we better off than we were four years ago? Are the strong among us more just; are the weak among us more secure?"

On an exit strategy for Iraq:
"If we leave, Iraq will be overrun by Iraqis and that, of course, would be unacceptable."