A Brilliant Analysis By A Former Lieberman Hand
Thanks to Academic Elephant for pointing out this positively masterful analysis of the relationship between the Democratic Party and its activist base by former Lieberman Communications Director Dan Gerstein.
Gerstein looks at the disconnect between the mainstream and activist views of the Alito hearings, and sees it as a microcosm of the disconnect between the base and the voters. That may not be a new insight, but seldom has its lesson been drawn as clearly as this:
…[T]hat’s the heart of the problem with our party and its angry activist base. It’s not so much that we’re living in a parallel universe, but that we have dueling conceptions of what’s mainstream, especially on abortion and other values-based issues, and our side is losing. We think that if we simply call someone conservative, anti-choice and anti-civil rights, that’s enough to scare people to our side. But that tired dogma won’t hunt in today’s electorate, which is far more independent-thinking and complex in its views on values than our side presumes.
That point was driven home in an incontrovertible analysis of the 2004 election results by Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck. They found that the American polity has undergone a great shaking out, where conservatives now vote almost universally for Republicans and liberals for Democrats, and that Republicans have won the presidency twice in a row because they’re doing a better job of pulling moderates/independents their way–in particular married women and white Catholics who are uncomfortable with the Democrats on values issues. Judging from the dreadful tack our party took in the Alito process, it’s clear that we haven’t yet internalized these political realities–most likely because our anger at George Bush continues to blind us to them. Many Democrats just don’t want to acknowledge that he’s president and is going to pick conservative justices–let alone that the two we got, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, are about as good as we could hope for.
This episode shows we don’t have any leader in power who will tell our base that we’re not going to become a majority party again by telling the majority they’re out of the mainstream. We do badly need leaders with courage–the courage, that is, to push our party (to borrow a phrase) to move on, to accept that we can’t win with the same lame ideological arguments in post-9/11 America, and that we must develop an alternative affirmative agenda that shows we can keep the country safer, make the economy stronger, and govern straighter than the ethically challenged Republicans. Then we can worry about picking the nominees instead of fighting them.
(Extra points for the phrase ‘that tired dogma won’t hunt’)…
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Interestingly, Frank Rich makes a similar point in his column today — he excoriates Ted Kennedy for his shameful remarks about Alito, and points to them as evidence why the Democrats are as flaccid as they are –
As a former Democrat (or, as I like to put it, a “Democrat in Recovery”) who abandoned the party because of its absurd extremism on abortion and other issues, I heartily agree with this analysis.
The Democrat party will not get a serious look from me again until it acknowledges that you can be pro-life without being a neanderthal racist.
For me, at the age of 44 and having lived the ‘liberal’ lifestyle, I awoke one day to recognize just how politically manipulative and dishonest was modern liberalism. My generation thought it could never grow old, could party like there was no tomorrow, could steal from Peter to pay for Paul’s pleasures, could portray modern day Medea playing vengence against The Man, could rewrite or ignore historical perspective and so forth without ever having to pay any price for what we considered to be a lifelong teenager’s entitlement that life was nothing more than the pursuit of narcissistic self-indulgent pleasures.
We partied for three decades but the party is just about to end and we are going to experience one hell of a hangover.
Self-reflection is wise advise I am hoping the Democrat Party will embrace.
I didn’t leave the democratic party. It left me.
For all reasons given by the others that commented.
Erm, the Democratic party first wooed me by presenting a former Navy officer — on nuclear subs no less — a Southern peanut farmer and Christian to boot. Prior to that Dems = Jim Crow, JFK & LBJ notwithstanding. Why? I dunno, must be something about George Wallace and folks of that ilk.
Once elected, I was disabused of those warm, safe fuzzy notions, when Jimmah Cahtah reckoned he’d seek advice from Amah about the Rooskies and their Nookes.
That, and the emotional handwringing and dithering before sending in a sub-optimal force to rescue the hostages. Just think, the Ayatollah’s revolution could have been DOA and that punk cum new century leader would be either rotting in prison or executed. Instead, we get treated to daily rants against Israel and the specter of 20,30, 50, 70, 100 hidden sites for Iran’s nuclear program.
That, and giving away Panama and now China owns the gateway to the southern western hemisphere.
That, and being chased by a wabid wabbit.
That, and … oh well better stop before I blow a gasket
Ciao