A Sharp Left Turn?
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 31, 2003; 9:03 AM
A civil war has erupted in the Democratic Party.
It's the liberals versus the centrists, the Howard Dean loyalists versus the anti-Dean establishment, the bash-Bush crowd versus those who believe anger alone can't win elections.
This ideological struggle will not only shape the 2004 election, but the shape of the party for years to come.
It's tough being a Democrat these days, with all the Beltway power centers in GOP hands, the governor of California facing a recall and the Texas Dems having fled to New Mexico to block a Republican redistricting plan. Frustrated Democrats are exasperated with the media and are talking about launching a liberal network. The '04 contenders, with the exception of Dean, have generated little excitement, prompting calls for Hillary and even Gore to jump in.
The middle-of-the-road Democratic Leadership Council, which met this week, has become command central for those who fear that Dean could be leading the party off a left-wing cliff. The DLCers want a Clinton-style candidate who is strong on defense and can appeal to moderates and independents.
Which is exactly what liberal activists want to avoid. Their nightmare is a Bush Lite candidate who doesn't excite "the base" and who embraces the kind of muddled message that led to a wipeout in the '02 races.
Complicating the picture is the unavoidable fact that a nominee has to bank left during the primaries, which are dominated by liberal voters, and tack to the center during the fall election, since elections are ultimately won in the swing districts of America. And to do all this against a president with an overwhelming financial advantage between next March and the conventions.
These debates often take place during an out-party's years in the wilderness, but in light of Dean's early success, it seems particularly intense this time around -- at least for those who are paying attention.
Salon's Joan Walsh spanks the DLC:
"Has Karl Rove taken over the Democratic Leadership Council? I can't think of another explanation for the centrist clique's destructive guerrilla war against fellow Democrats. Tuesday's New York Times outlines the latest assault: A DLC conference this week devoted to blasting the party's presidential hopefuls for their 'far left' critique of President Bush's budget-busting tax cuts and his dishonesty in leading the nation into war. If hitting Bush on those blunders really makes Democrats unelectable, the nation is in worse trouble than the DLC thinks. . . .
"I voted for John Kerry in the MoveOn.org primary, because I currently think Kerry's the most electable Democrat in the race, and I wanted to ensure he got enough votes from the left that he won't be able to afford to write it off. I don't know why the DLC doesn't pursue a comparable strategy with Dean -- maintain a respectful relationship and mobilize its own constituency to show there's victory in a coalition that includes centrists. The problem is, the DLC doesn't have its own constituency, outside of Beltway think tanks and the Op-Ed pages. The DLC does ideas, it doesn't do retail politics. So it has little to offer Dean besides a good scolding.
"I don't know what combination of left, right and center will be necessary to beat Bush in 2004. All I know is that branding the Democrats' opposition to Bush's tax cuts and Iraq debacle 'far left' does Karl Rove's work for him. For a bunch of guys whose appeal is supposed to be their smarts, that's awfully dumb politics."
The Hill sees a possible late entry (although I'd bet money against it):
"Former Vice-President Al Gore is coming under pressure from political supporters and friends to jump into the 2004 presidential campaign even though he ruled himself out in December.
"Gore's spokesperson denied that there was any change of plans, but a former Democratic National Committee official close to Gore told The Hill he believes the former vice president may enter the Democratic primary this fall."
Will opponents run that hot-tub footage from "Saturday Night Live"?
The New York Times uncorks a humongous profile of the good doctor:
"With his early and intense opposition to the American-led attack on Iraq, his call for universal health insurance and his signing a bill that created civil unions for gay couples in Vermont, Dr. Dean, 54, is seen as the most liberal of the major Democratic candidates. Many of the people donning his 'Give 'em hell, Howard' buttons hail from the left wing of the party and beyond.
"But in Vermont, whose political center of gravity lands left of the nation's, one of the secrets to Dr. Dean's success was keeping the most liberal politicians in check.
"Over 11 years, he restrained spending growth to turn a large budget deficit into a surplus, cut taxes, forced many on welfare to go to work, abandoned a sweeping approach to health-care reform in favor of more incremental measures, antagonized environmentalists, won the top rating from the National Rifle Association and consistently embraced business interests. . . . He remains a fiscal conservative, he believes gun control should be left to the states and he favors the death penalty for some crimes."
How's this for the power of the press? A Washington Post editorial Tuesday scolds Bush for not having held a full-scale news conference since March.
And yesterday morning, the president emerges in the Rose Garden and answers reporters' questions for nearly an hour!
The Wall Street Journal hits the highlights:
"President Bush warned Iran against developing a nuclear weapon and issued a strong endorsement of his National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who recently took responsibility for allowing disputed intelligence about Iraq to get into Mr. Bush's prewar State of the Union speech. . . .
"The president's relaxed performance in an extensive exchange with reporters over both international and domestic issues suggests that the White House feels it has turned a corner on Iraq and a recent crisis over whether the administration exaggerated prewar intelligence to justify toppling Saddam Hussein.
"The president offered a vigorous defense of progress in Iraq, noting that the U.S. military is making progress in routing out pockets of resistance and that a governing counsel is working to establish a Iraqi-led democratic government. 'I never expected Thomas Jefferson to emerge in Iraq in a 90-day period,' Mr. Bush said."
The New York Times emphasizes a different point:
"At his first full-scale news conference in nearly five months, Mr. Bush also took responsibility for the first time for an assertion in his State of the Union address about Iraq's nuclear weapons program that turned out to be based on questionable intelligence. He had initially suggested that the fault for including the assertion rested with the C.I.A."
On gay rights, the subject of yesterday's column, Bush did not go out of his way to sound sympathetic, which seemed to please the Washington Times:
"President Bush yesterday said he would not 'compromise' on the issue of homosexual 'marriage' and said administration lawyers are exploring ways to restrict marriage to heterosexuals.
" 'Marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or the other,' Mr. Bush said in a wide-ranging press conference in the Rose Garden. . . . In his most extensive comments on homosexuality since taking office, the president tried not to be judgmental, though he suggested homosexuality is a sin.
" 'I am mindful that we're all sinners, and I caution those who may try to take the speck out of their neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own,' he said. " 'I think it's very important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming country. On the other hand, that does not mean that somebody like me needs to compromise on an issue such as marriage,' Mr. Bush added."
Roger Simon ponders the question of whether Bush can be defeated:
"Hardly anybody is ever really unbeatable. George Bush's father looked unbeatable in 1991, yet he lost in 1992. Not only did the economy tank, which made people forget about America's victory in the Iraq war, but Bush came up against one of the best campaigners in modern history, Bill Clinton.
"This time around, the economy will once again go a long way in determining our current president's re-election chances. The economy may be booming by next fall, but if it isn't, will voters believe George W. Bush that the economic downturn is a result of Sept. 11 and the best cure is his tax cuts, or will they believe Democrats who say his tax cuts caused huge deficits that harmed the economy?
"Then there is Iraq. So far, Iraq has been a plus for Bush, because Bush and his team have managed to link Saddam Hussein with Sept. 11 and Al Qaeda. Though critics say the hard evidence is scant, the administration argues that the Iraq war not only punished these terrorists, but will protect our shores in the future. . . .
"On the other hand, there are worse things to be going into an election than an incumbent president who has won two wars."
National Review's Jay Nordlinger concludes after an extensive investigation that a lot of people like Hillary:
"Never am I more annoying to my fellow conservatives than when I state how popular Hillary Clinton is, and what a threat she is, on the political stage. I annoyed conservatives all through that Senate campaign, when many were chortling 'carpetbagger,' 'liberal extremist,' etc. And I have done so more recently by pointing to the mind-boggling popularity of her memoir. This is a book that, from what I've heard, is dull and unnewsworthy. And it's flying off the shelves. It is winning back that historic advance, and going on from there.
"Now one reads that, on the day she launched her '06 Senate-campaign website -- FriendsofHillary.com -- it had so many visitors that it crashed.
"Hillary Clinton is the princess, or queen, of the Democratic party, which represents about half the country. (It just kills my fellow cons when they are reminded that Al Gore received more votes than George W. Bush, nationally.) Hillary is an utter heroine to a huge chunk of our nation. Much as that nauseates us, we have to be aware of it -- and plan and act accordingly!
"Let me emphasize: It isn't just lesbian, socialist vegans who are pro-Hillary; that is a comforting fantasy. It's good and ordinary and patriotic American folk who are drawn to her. Believe me -- I know some!"
Kerry and Dean are at it again, says this AP report in the Boston Globe:
"Presidential rivals Howard Dean and John F. Kerry, who have been at odds over national security, quarreled yesterday over what Democrats should do with President Bush's tax cuts. Poised to deliver remarks on the economy in Iowa and New Hampshire later in the day, the primary foes rushed to criticize each other, even if it meant upstaging their own speeches. Kerry fired the first salvo.
" 'Real Democrats don't walk away from the middle class,' the Massachusetts senator said. 'They don't take away a tax credit for families struggling to raise their children or bring back a tax penalty for married couples who are starting out or penalize teachers and waitresses by raising taxes on the middle class' . . .
"Dean answered back in an interview. 'Real Democrats don't make promises they can't keep,' the former Vermont governor said."
This thing is getting . . . real.
The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn has some nice words for Edwards, substantively speaking:
"Give John Edwards credit for finding a way to come up with something novel -- and worthwhile -- even though he's one of the last Democratic presidential candidates to unveil a health care proposal. On Monday, Edwards introduced his plan to expand health insurance coverage, particularly among children, through a system of tax incentives and expanded government programs.
"This might not seem new: After all, Howard Dean and John Kerry have both proposed to use the same basic formula to make sure nearly every child, as well as most adults, have health insurance. But Edwards has an important wrinkle in his plan: He'd make insurance for children mandatory. Parents would be legally responsible for providing their children with insurance or obtaining government insurance if private coverage was unaffordable. To enforce the mandate -- and extend coverage to kids who might fall through the cracks -- hospitals, clinics, and schools would check for insurance in the same way they now check for routine childhood vaccines.
"Taking this step -- policy wonks call it an 'individual mandate' -- is important as policy because, done properly, it would mean Edwards gets closer to truly 'universal' coverage for children than either Dean or Kerry, at least at the outset."
Slate's Daniel Gross defends the just-shot-down Poindexter plan for a futures market in terrorism:
"On its face, the market is not a preposterous idea. Economist Robert Schiller has already proposed using derivatives to ensure against global instability. Surprise events in the Middle East can shake the global economy, and it would be excellent to anticipate and hedge against such turmoil.
"The havoc exchange could have provided a delightful opportunity for foreign policy gurus to reposition themselves. Brookings Institution types would have held forth on the importance of diversification: 'Next on CNBC: Steven Emerson is bearish on Prime Minister Abdullah Gul of Turkey, so now's the time to take a serious look at King Hassan of Morocco.' CNN geopolitical analysts would have been forced to disclose positions and conflicts of interest, just as brokerage analysts do on CNBC: 'William Kristol is long on Saudi Arabian monarchy calls dated 2006 and owns Hosni Mubarak 2004 puts. His magazine has a significant stake in the outcome of the war on Iraq.'"
And in the best show around, the California recall, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez analyzes Davis's appeal, or lack thereof:
"Like it or not, exaggerating, shading, tweaking, reinventing, underplaying, manipulating, hiding, and distorting the truth are essential, time-honored strategies in the grand tradition of American politics.
"There's the campaign promise, the rosy outlook, the gloomy forecast, and countless other popular fibs and whoppers. But in the end, it's never really 'the beginning of a new era' or 'the end of business as usual,' and read my lips as I tell you to look for an offshore shelter the minute a politician guarantees 'no new taxes.' So in the great pantheon of political lies, do Gov. Gray Davis' campaign-season distortions about the budget deficit warrant a public beheading? Of course not, but I have to admit that I've lost all perspective. . . .
"Davis' head is on the block for many reasons, but to the extent that dishonesty plays a role, why exactly do his sins rise above those of fellow politicians? They don't. His problem isn't fibbing, but being a fibber with no redeeming qualities. We might be willing to give him a pass if he demonstrated a passion for anything other than fund-raising. . . .
"In Davis' case, lying about a woman in a blue dress might have helped his career, because a sex scandal would at least make him look human."
With two months to go, there's still time. |
