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Why can't the Democrats
capitalize?
MSNBC/NY Times
By Howard Fineman
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 1:00 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2005
WASHINGTON - With George W. Bush's presidency mired in the muck of
hurricanes and doubts about the war, you'd think Democrats would be
bursting with energy, eagerly expecting to regain power. But, in a roomful of
well-connected Democrats the other night, I was struck by how gloomy they were.
They can't stand Bush, but didn't have much faith in their own
party's prospects.
Why? Well, some of the reasons they articulated are short-term and tactical;
some are purely personal; others more philosophical; and I have a few
myself:
Supreme divisions
The president's nomination of John Roberts was a ten strike, knocking
apart whatever united front the Dems might have been able to muster on judicial
issues. However genial and cerebral he may be, Roberts also is a
board-certified conservative, blessed by the James Dobsons of the world.
No one doubted that at least a few Red State Democrats would vote for him,
but the defection of Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont (no less), the ranking Democrat
on the Judiciary Committee, was a stunner – and a demoralizing one for
the party faithful.
Democrats are vowing to remain unified over Bush's NEXT pick –
which almost certainly will be a woman, a Hispanic or both. So the party could
find itself in a tough political position once again.
Lack of star power
These things go in cycles, I guess, and it's hard to be glamorous when
you are in the minority in both houses of Congress. That said, it's
incontestably true that the Democrats simply aren't blessed with much
charisma in the leadership ranks — unless you consider Angelina Jolie a
Democrat.
The GOP has Rudy, Colin, Arnold, McCain and Condi – just to name a
few: big, bold, controversial characters. Good copy if nothing else. The more
or less official roster of titular Democratic leaders includes Harry Reid,
Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean and 2004 nominee John Kerry. ‘Nuff said.
Hillary love and fear
The purported inevitability of Hillary Rodham Clinton excites some Democrats,
but deeply depresses some others, both inside and outside the Beltway.
Her forcefulness and talent — not to mention her well-oiled money
machine — bring respect from party insiders and outsiders alike. But
there is an undercurrent of unease about the Back to the Future quality of
another Clinton candidacy. Do we really want to relive the Clinton Years? Under
their breath, even many Clinton acolytes tend to say "NO.'
A house divided
Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union is a brilliant
agitator, and he has all but single-handedly crippled the AFL-CIO by taking his
union and several others into a new group called the Change to Win
Federation.
Stern's rationale, in part, is that the Democrats are taking
rank-and-file workers for granted. Does that mean Change to Win will consider
endorsing Republicans (as the Teamsters, another member of the Stern Gang,
sometimes do)? No wonder Dems are gloomy.
War waffling
I spent some time with Cindy Sheehan the other day, and I was struck by her
impatience with the Democrats.
"Why are they so afraid?' she wanted to know. She had just met
with Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton, and described both as cautious in their
statements, with Reid saying that the Dems "had no choice' but to
push for a drawdown of U.S. troops and Hillary remaining largely mum.
Frankly, I was surprised that Reid and Clinton met with her at all. The Dems
are afraid of their own shadow on the Iraq war. Most of their leadership voted
twice for the conflict — the authorizing resolution and the money to
support it. And none of them has come out, flat out, to say that they made a
mistake.
Do they believe in the aims of the war or not? If they fault the execution
of the war, precisely what would they do differently now? The silence is
thundering.
Missed opportunities
And then there are all those issues that got swept away -- and swept off the
front pages -- by the storms: the Karl Rove/CIA leak investigation; the FDA
controversy about over-the-counter sales of the "Morning After Pill," and the
subsequent resignations from the agency; the on-again, off-again debate about
re-jiggering Social Security; and even the investigation of what went wrong
with FEMA's hurricane response. All were juicy issues for the Democrats to dig
into, but the opposition party failed to muster a united voice.
Vision and passion
I led my NEWSWEEK piece with an anecdote about President Lyndon Johnson in
1965. When a huge hurricane hit New Orleans that year, he hustled down to
Louisiana, and was on the scene within a day, offering the full resources of
the federal government to help get the region back on its feet.
I thought it was an instructive contrast to Bush's too-little,
too-late personal response to Katrina. But the anecdote contains a lesson for
Democrats, too: LBJ stood for a big idea — the healing power of
government. He was in the mist of his Great Society presidency.
What Big Idea would a Democratic presidency be about? No one seems to know,
which is perhaps the main reason why the party faithful in that room seemed so
lost.
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