Two Prescriptions for Healing What Ails the Democratic Party

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How should Democrats craft their strategies for the long term, as well as those for the 2006 and 2008 elections? How can rank and file Democrats gain a more powerful voice in the process? The advice contained in two timely articles rises to the top of the heap in my opinion. I highly recommend reading both of them in their entirety.

The first, Middlemarch by Eyal Press of The Nation, analyzes the paralyzing side effects of the Clinton years that continue to stifle Democratic positions and strategy. Bottom line: If you try to please everyone, particularly those mythical "swing voters," you end up pleasing no-one. Excerpts:

... Clinton's legacy and example is something the Democrats urgently need to shed, not embrace. For it is from Clinton that the party's leaders inherited some of their most debilitating traits: the obsessive fixation on polls (mined in a desperate effort to predict what the public wants them to say); the elevation of expediency over principle; the search for compromise in a tug of war with an opponent that has made no secret of its desire to quash them at every turn. Again and again during his two terms in office, Clinton neutralized his conservative critics by co-opting their ideas and blurring the distinction between himself and them. Many people looking back believe this was smart politics. But any honest assessment must reckon with the costs. As Harris notes, Clinton's two major achievements--reforming welfare and balancing the budget--were conservative goals. In announcing that the era of big government was over, he was reading from a script written by the right. Clinton was a brilliant politician but a terrible party leader. His personal survival came, it appears increasingly clear over time, at the Democrats' collective expense.

... Strikingly, however, the Democrats still appear unable--or unwilling--to seize the moment and explain how they would govern the country differently. They bemoan the phenomenon of working-class voters getting suckered into voting for the GOP yet shy away from embracing a populist economic agenda that might win back their allegiance. They criticize the Bush Administration for leading America into a disastrous war yet refrain from issuing a unified call for withdrawal (when Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha recently did just that, Democrats from Hillary Clinton to John Kerry scrambled to distance themselves from his remarks). Perhaps this is why, in a recent Pew Research Center poll, while the voters said they trusted the Democrats more on a wide range of issues, the party's approval ratings were no better than the Republicans', with discontent particularly strong among their own usual supporters. Sixty-three percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents believe "the party is doing only a fair or a poor job standing up for its traditional positions on such things as protecting the interests of minorities, helping the poor and needy, and representing working people." Until this changes, there will be no reason to believe that the Republican Party's recent problems will have a lasting effect. And, for all the flaws and contortions in our political culture and system of representative government, the Democrats will have nobody but themselves to blame.

The second is The Rise of the Rebels by the always compelling William Greider, also in The Nation. Greider considers the threats of the Party's progressive, core-principle wing to run primary candidates against increasingly turncoat candidates like Senators Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton. He welcomes this "insurrection" and tracks how a similar movement within the Republican Party eventually resulted in a takeover by its right wing. Excerpts:

... The Democratic Party is never going to change substantively and again become a reform party with a serious agenda until some of its blood is spilled ... For years, incumbent Dems have distanced themselves from fundamental convictions, confident the party's "base" wouldn't do anything about it beyond whimpering. Until now, the cynicism was well founded. Galvanized by the war, disgusted with weak-spined party leaders, the rank-and-file may at last be ready to bite back.

... Democratic leaders in Washington naturally discourage the talk of insurgency, warning it could endanger the party's chance of regaining a majority in the House or Senate. Some progressives doubtless agree. But this is the same logic--follow the leaders and keep your mouth shut--that has produced a long string of lame candidates with empty agendas, most recently John Kerry in 2004. The strategy of unity and weak substance led Democrats further to the right, further from their most loyal constituents. And they lost power across the board.

... MoveOn and many other groups are, in essence, experimenting in the early stages of democratic invention--developing ways to restore influence to citizens at large and exert discipline on party incumbents. These are the self-correcting mechanisms of representative democracy that have been largely lost in the Democratic Party. "We are challenging the incoherence and appeasement of the Democratic Party," Matzzie says, "but we also have to do the work and develop the movement."

As we move into election mode, it's clear that unless the Party and its DLC and Beltway elements are pressured strongly and repeatedly, we'll get more of the same. More cowardice. More mushiness. More unprincipled expediency. More fear-based mumbling and candy-coated jive. More neglect of the Party's traditional core values in favor of a jumble of negativity. More fear-based avoidance of taking strong stands on the very issues that have traditionally made Democrats, well, Democrats.

What do you think? How can we help push the Democratic Party back to its roots -- its naturally liberal, no-nonsense grassroots?