Can the Democrats win? That is the question that is buzzing about the blogosphere and the MSM. In the New York Times this morning, we find an article about the intellectual and policy debates as optimistic Democrats talk about their vision for the future. Of course, having observed Democrats since 1980, I am skeptical about their ability to coalesce around an agenda that is in sync with mainstream American values. One of their major problems, it seems to me, is the growing power and passion of the angry, web-driven, anti-war left. Richard Cohen writes about their passion and anger in this piece in the Washington Post.

The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out, Hillary!) I have seen this anger before -- back in the Vietnam War era. That's when the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.

The hatred is back. I know it's only words now appearing on my computer screen, but the words are so angry, so roiled with rage, that they are the functional equivalent of rocks once so furiously hurled during antiwar demonstrations. I can appreciate some of it. Institution after institution failed America -- the presidency, Congress and the press. They all endorsed a war to rid Iraq of what it did not have. Now, though, that gullibility is being matched by war critics who are so hyped on their own sanctimony that they will obliterate distinctions, punishing their friends for apostasy and, by so doing, aiding their enemies. If that's going to be the case, then Iraq is a war its critics will lose twice -- once because they couldn't stop it and once more at the polls.

This hatred is being stoked and manipulated by some on the Left toward a particular kind of political action, just as it was in the late 60s and early 70s. Perhaps the leading voice of the new, web-driven, anti-war Left is Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the Daily Kos blog, the most popular blog on the web. In Sunday's Washington Post, he took aim squarely at Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton leads her Democratic rivals in the polls and in fundraising. Unfortunately, however, the New York senator is part of a failed Democratic Party establishment -- led by her husband -- that enabled the George W. Bush presidency and the Republican majorities, and all the havoc they have wreaked at home and abroad.

As Cohen suggests, we have seen this kind of activism before. It led to the takeover of the Democratic Party in 1972 by the McGovernites, who were absolutely crushed that November. If it were not for the political disaster of Watergate, it is arguable that the Democrats decline would have begun at that time, rather than the 1980s. In fact, Marshall Wittmann calls these new activists "McGovernites with Modems".

Here is an early prediction. In 2004, as in 1968, the Democratic establishment held the line and nominated the safe candidate over the anti-war crowd's favorite (Humphrey over McCarthy in '68, Kerry over Dean in '04). In 2008, as in 1972, I expect the anti-war crowd to win out, especially if we still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would not be surprised if Senator Russ Feingold is the nominee and he is wiped out by the GOP nominee, Senator John McCain, perhaps. America is a center-right country, and it will not embrace the radical left.