David, here we go. Dems adopt a more "confrontational" stance.
If at first you don't succeed, try the same mistakes again.
usatoday.com
Dems adopt a more confrontational stance
By Susan Page, USA TODAY
House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri will announce today that he won't run for another term as leader, aides said Wednesday, as Democrats vowed to take a tougher line toward President Bush in the wake of Tuesday's elections.
Gephardt has decided to focus on a bid for the presidency in 2004, a senior adviser said. When newly elected House Democrats meet next week to organize for Congress' next session, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, now his top deputy, is favored to win the leadership job. She will be challenged by Texas Rep. Martin Frost.
Pelosi's election would give House Democrats a more liberal face and their first female leader.
The shuffle was one piece of a broader scramble by Democrats to figure out why the party's candidates didn't fare better, how they should behave in a reshaped political world and what they need to do to better challenge Bush when he's on the ballot in two years.
The tone at news conferences and interviews alternated between defiant and defensive. Some portrayed the election outcome — Republicans regained control of the Senate and strengthened their margin in the House — as a red flag for the party. Democrats had a net gain of three or four governorships.
"Democrats should not mistake the magnitude of this loss," former vice president Al Gore, who is expected to join Gephardt as a presidential contender, said in an interview with ABC. "There has to be a major regrouping."
But Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe said the Republicans' showing was a "tactical" but not ideological victory — one that reflected their greater campaign resources and the power of the president's bully pulpit, not a significant shift in voter sentiment.
Key Democrats said to expect a more confrontational stance by members of Congress toward Bush and an increasing spotlight on the presidential contenders who hope to take him on. The cooperation Bush has sought and sometimes gotten from Democrats on education, defense and other issues will be a harder sell, they say.
"You're going to hear a much more full-throated critique of (Bush's) economic program and you're going to see more of a critique of his unilateralist foreign policy," says John Podesta, a White House chief of staff for President Clinton who now advises Democratic congressional leaders. "You'll see Democrats challenge him across-the-board."
Democrats say they'll feel free to hold Republicans responsible for everything from the state of the economy to the security of the homeland. "The president got what he asked for last night, and now he will have to produce," McAuliffe said as he made a round of appearances before reporters. "This is his sputtering economy, and he must take responsibility for it."
Of course, Democrats will feel free to leave governance to the GOP because they no longer control any part of the federal government — not the election aftermath they wanted.
"There's no illusions now," Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg said. "We're the opposition, the official opposition, and they have control of all the levers of power and all the agencies of the government."
With Tuesday's setbacks, Democrats will be able to block legislation through a Senate filibuster but they won't be able to pass legislation on their own. Without committee chairmanships, they won't be able to issue subpoenas or launch investigations of the administration unless the GOP agrees. Judicial nominations will be harder to submarine.
On the other hand, Democrats will be able to delay, criticize and kvetch.
But there are risks for Democrats if they seem irresponsible. And a debate already is brewing within Democrats ranks over whether the more confrontational stance the party will take — and its promise to offer a clearer alternative policy on the economy and other issues — means a return to traditional liberalism.
Party liberals argued that Democrats made a mistake in this campaign by not calling for repeal of last year's $1.35 trillion tax cut and not questioning the administration more skeptically on its request for authorization to take military action against Iraq.
The failure to give voters a clear sense of the party's economic priorities was "a particularly strong indictment of the Democrats," says John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, a backbone of the party. While its members no longer vote as solidly Democratic as in the past, the union still offers critical financial, get-out-the-vote and grassroots support to party candidates across the nation.
But the Democratic Leadership Council, a leading group of centrist Democrats, circulated a memo warning, "A majority of Americans are still moderates; a plurality of Americans are still independents; and ... efforts to energize one party's base often energize the other's."
A senior party strategist noted the Democratic contenders in heartbreak races — Georgia Sen. Max Cleland and Missouri Sen. Jean Carnahan among them — would have been hurt by a strong stance against the war in Iraq or in favor of repealing the tax cut.
Some of Wednesday's news conferences took place at Democratic National Committee headquarters. The red-white-and-blue banner from Election Night was still hanging behind the podium, but the slogan seemed out-of-date: "Democratic majority in the making."
"Now Republicans will have to deliver on the issues on which they campaigned," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., head of the Senate campaign committee, said at one post-mortem. "These are difficult issues, and we will be watching."
Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., head of the House campaign committee, explained congressional losses with what sounded like a warning: "Voters just haven't blamed Republicans for the economy — yet."
Contributing: Contributing: William M. Welch and Kathy Kiely |
