Too many people interested in politics get hung up on the tactical level and ignore the strategic. We are seeing it today in both parties as they worry about the tactical-level off-year election coming up. The president can build strategic value by doing his job well and speaking above the daily conflicts. The Bush team is handling that well, despite some grousing in the party ranks, as well as in the base itself. But the result is that Bush can maximize his impact on the off-year fights through both televised visits and fund raising. At the same time, it's already obvious to all but about 15% on the far left that he will walk in to a second term in 2004.
No, the Bush team didn't invent this strategic-level imaging, but they appear to be the first among the Republicans to have (finally) mastered it. The Democrats are stuck in the rut of acting like they still have Clinton in the White House, and continue their mission of trashing the opposition with lies. They are, in the time-honored historical sense, fighting the last war. Much of this is residue from the post-2000 legal conflict, which they should have walked away from instead of trying to reverse the close electoral result. The Republicans walked away from 2 shady election results: 1960 and 1976. And, while that was heartbreaking for them at the time, their party emerged stronger within a few election cycles because they didn't dwell on "getting screwed". That's a tactic that strokes the base for a while, but hurts a party's rebuilding efforts, as the Democrats will see over the rest of this decade.
We will see if the 200-year-old Democratic party is going to survive another two centuries, or fade away to obscurity like the Whigs, if, after their coming disappointment in 2002, they run Carville/Begala/Greenberg out of the party and begin the long road back to being a LOYAL opposition again... |
