CAMPAIGN 2004
When in Doubt, Lean Left
The Democrats follow the same losing strategy as in 1984.
BY FRED BARNES
Friday, February 7, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003041
Political habits sometimes repeat themselves. Twenty years ago, Democrats confronted a conservative Republican president in Congress--and in preliminary sparring before the 1984 presidential campaign--by moving to the left on war, taxes, social issues, and race. Today, facing another conservative Republican in the White House, they're doing the same.
The shift didn't work in the 1980s and isn't likely to help Democrats now. In 1983 President Reagan wasn't the political powerhouse he became the next year when the economy recovered and the Soviets blinked in the struggle over missiles in Europe. So the Democrats' tilt to the left merely made his landslide re-election easier.
Democrats may do a similar favor for President Bush in 2004. Should war with Iraq produce a decisive victory and the economy pick up steam next year, Mr. Bush would be difficult to defeat no matter what Democrats do. But the story would be different if the economy limps along and Mr. Bush's war with Iraq and terrorists achieves mixed results or worse. He would be highly vulnerable. Still, he'd be competitive and perhaps the favorite against a foe who reflects the views of an antiwar, high tax, socially liberal Democratic party.
What's amazing is that even the architect of the Democratic capture of the White House in 1992, Bill Clinton, often echoes the Democratic crowd today. Mr. Clinton won by running as a moderate who backed the 1991 Gulf War and a middle-class tax cut. Now he's urged Mr. Bush to wait before going to war with Iraq, opposes Mr. Bush on taxes, supports racial preferences, and wants to keep partial-birth abortion legal. Like other "new Democrats," Mr. Clinton has been caught in the leftward drift. In last fall's election, there was a lesson for Democrats. They failed to offer a serious approach to the paramount issue, security, and were pummeled by Republicans. Afterwards, Mr. Clinton offered sound advice. Democrats "have a heavy responsibility to cooperate in uniting the country" on national security issues, he said. "We don't have to be more liberal but we do have to be more relevant in a progressive way." Democrats have largely ignored the advice. Not all are opposed to war with Iraq. Sens. John Edwards and Joe Lieberman and Rep. Richard Gephardt, all presidential candidates, back Mr. Bush. But the leading edge of Democrats--congressional leaders, sympathetic journalists, a majority of presidential candidates--have set the tone for the party. They question Mr. Bush's leadership, doubt his credibility, and erect barriers in the path to war. Even Mr. Clinton said we should "listen to the [U.N.]inspectors"--thus, not to Mr. Bush--on the course to take in Iraq.
By always saddling the president with another obstacle before going to war, Democrats reinforce their reputation as force-averse. After Colin Powell presented persuasive evidence to the U.N. of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi, his House counterpart, insisted inspectors should be given more time. And Mr. Daschle has argued the American people "need to know more" before war on Iraq is declared and that Mr. Bush should halt "this hurry up approach" to Iraq and deal first with North Korea and terrorism. Neither the case Mr. Bush made against Iraq in his State of the Union address nor Mr. Powell's U.N. presentation swayed Sen. Edward Kennedy, who remains noisily antiwar. Though Congress overwhelmingly approved a war resolution last fall, Mr. Kennedy is now demanding a new vote. "If our goal is disarmament, we are likely to accomplish more by inspections than by war," he said.
Sen. John Kerry, also a presidential contender, faulted Mr. Bush for "blustering unilateralism" in the State of the Union. Yes, Mr. Powell delivered "strong evidence," Mr. Kerry said, but Mr. Bush still needs to recruit more allies and work through the U.N. before going to war. Joe Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has generally supported Mr. Bush, but he too has set a fresh hurdle for him--still another U.N. resolution on Iraq. The result of all this? Democrats come across as indecisive, wary of military force, and reflexively uncooperative with the president--just as they did in 1983 when attacking Mr. Reagan's hawkish policy toward the Soviets as warmongering.
Two decades ago, Democratic leaders spoke with one voice on taxes, and they do today as well. They were happy to let Mr. Reagan be identified with deep tax cuts. But they misunderstood polls on the issue. Tax cuts chronically fare poorly in opinion polls but do quite well at the ballot box.
Last November's election did teach Democrats one thing: They'd be wise to propose a tax cut of their own. The problem is they spend more time bashing Mr. Bush's much larger tax cut than touting their own. And two Democratic presidential candidates, Mr. Gephardt and ex-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, want to nullify Mr. Bush's 2001 tax cut and uproot those parts of it that have already gone into effect. On social issues and race, Democrats are glued to their special interest groups, feminists and minorities. This year, Mr. Bush is promoting the most popular proposal on the pro-life agenda, a ban on partial-birth abortion. It's backed by three-fourths of the American people. Nonetheless, Democrat presidential hopefuls assembled like sheep at a banquet of NARAL Pro-Choice America to declare their support for keeping the partial-birth abortion legal.
And Democrats have lined up once more behind racial preferences. Mr. Kennedy justifies preferences by arguing racial diversity "has been and always will be a compelling governmental interest." Mr. Lieberman opposed racial quotas for decades, but now endorses the controversial quota scheme at the University of Michigan.
The lingering question is why Democrats have moved to the left at a time when the country hasn't? They know the history of the 1984 election (and 1972, for that matter). They're not self-destructive and don't have a death wish. There's a simple explanation. Leaning left is their natural posture. The remembrance of elections past hasn't changed that.
Mr. Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard and co-host of Fox News Channel's "The Beltway Boys." |
