The Democrats' Dilemma
If wishes were horses, the Democrats could ride their justified disgust with George W. Bush into the White House.
But it will take more than name-calling to defeat an incumbent Republican president with a likely three-to-one money advantage. And there are warning signs of a possible Democratic disaster next year for all who pay attention to them.
Consider the following recent trends, polls and legislative developments and ask yourself, which party has the political upper hand going into the presidential season?
The 9/11 tragedy brought a sea-change to American politics, a shift to the right that will be with us for years to come. This is reflected in a Pew survey based on 80,000 interviews over three years and released November 5. It concluded that "the GOP, which lagged well behind the Democrats in party affiliation for most of the past century, achieved significant nationwide gains after Sept. 11 and has drawn even with the Democrats."
The Pew report added, "As it now stands, more voters identify with the GOP both in so-called 'Red' states—those that consistently have voted Republican in recent presidential elections—but also in a number of swing states like Michigan and Florida. At the same time, Democrats have lost ground in swing states and have not picked up adherents in 'Blue' states—those that have gone Democratic in recent elections."
Moreover, when a New York Times poll completed Oct. 1 asked, "Do you believe the Democrats have a clear plan for the country," the answer was 'No,' by 48 percent to 38 percent. And half the Democrats in the Nov. 2 Washington Post poll said their party compromises too much with Bush—a bad sign for voter turnout.
Those twin impressions, which trace a seismic political shift, have not been dispelled by the antics of Congressional Democrats over the past six weeks.
Exhibit A is the Medicare bill. When leading Democratic senators Max Baucus and John Breaux decided to co-sponsor the GOP's Medicare "compromise"— previously diluted by Ted Kennedy's sellout on the infamous "doughnut hole," which will force many seniors to choose between meds and food—their support gave the Bushies bipartisan cover to claim they'd done something about the urgent problem of prescription drugs, probably the Democrats' best issue. Add to this the AARP's $7 million TV ad blitz in support of the Republicans' bill, coupled with the group's propaganda blitz of their 35 million members, and it's clear that prescription drugs will not be a determinant issue in '04.
The record on energy is no better. The Democrats' Senate leader, Tom Daschle, increasingly looks like his party's capitulator-in-chief. Daschle opposed the Kennedy-Kerry plan to filibuster the GOP's destruction of Medicare, which passed the House only by an eyelash thanks to the White House's bully-boy tactics. And when Daschle signed onto the GOP's energy bill—which provides mammoth subsidies for the oil-and-gas industry, including a $2 billion bribe to get them to stop polluting our water with toxic MTBE—he did so because he was more concerned about his own desperate fight for re-election than about the good of the national party. Why? Because the bill also gives subsidies to ethanol—a major issue in Daschle's South Dakota. Even ethanol-supporter Dick Durbin of Illinois called this sellout "a pact with the devil."
What about the economy? Bush's appealingly simplistic, faux-populist 'plan'—"Cut Taxes"—can fit onto a bumper sticker. The Democrats have no comparable bumper sticker. And the 3rd quarter growth results, combined with seven straight weeks of a downturn in unemployment claims, allow the Bushies to add to their slogan, "It works!" No wonder that Bush's approval rating on the economy jumped 7 points in the last Wall Street Journal/NBC poll.
Furthermore, with the Dow holding relatively steady at 9600-9700 points—well over the threshold 7000 mark that economists say would spark investor panic—the 53 percent of Americans who own stock (largely through their 401Ks) can look at Wall Street and say, maybe things aren't so bad.
With prescription drugs, energy and (for now) the economy off the table, that leaves Iraq. But no presidential election has been decided on foreign policy in the half century since Ike proclaimed, "I will go to Korea." Even Nixon was elected in '68 not on Vietnam, but on law-and-order and race-based fears. And Jimmy Carter was doomed to one term by high interest rates and gas prices, even without the Iran hostage crisis (remember Ronald Reagan's killer question, "Are you better off now than four years ago?") Even the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, says none of the Democratic front-runners has "a coherent foreign policy."
And the American public still gives the president the benefit of the doubt on Iraq. The Nov. 17 Washington Post poll, which showed Bush's approval rating at a healthy 57 percent, also showed that 62 percent say U.S. troops should stay in Iraq until order is restored despite the casualties. That means that body bags, too, are off the table. Why? Because, as The Washington Post poll showed a month previously, 61 percent believe the Iraq invasion was part of the war on terrorism—the 9/11 effect again. And in the Nov. 21 Los Angeles Times poll, 59 percent approve of Bush's handling of the war on terrorism.
Not only that, a devastatingly depressing Ford Foundation-funded study for the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs, released Oct. 4, showed that some two-thirds of those who get their news from TV still believe that Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11 or that weapons of mass destruction have actually been found in Iraq! The latest Gallup survey on the subject found that two-thirds don't even want TV coverage of funerals or returning coffins—Americans don't like being reminded of the Iraq occupation's terminal consequences.
You might ask, 'Won't bringing new voters into the process make a difference?' 'Won't the youth voter registration by Rock the Vote, MoveOn, and the new Norman Lear/Drew Barrymore campaign add tons of new anti-Bush voters to the rolls?' Nope. The Harvard University national student survey released last month shows that approval of Bush approaches two-thirds—a finding reinforced by the 62 percent pro-Bush support among the 19-to-24 age group in the Oct. 29 Gallup poll (which also found 61 percent of the young think the Iraq war was "worth it."
Last but hardly least, the Republicans electorally virulent "god and gays" culture war designed to take advantage of the anti-gay backlash got a huge boost from the Massachusetts court decision on gay marriage which, as The Boston Globe reported, was "greeted with glee" by the Republicans' strategists. The Bushies know the gay marriage issue will help them cut into Democratic base groups—Latino, black, and working class (in the latest Pew poll on the subject, 48 percent of self-identified Democrats oppose gay marriage).
All of the above dictates a fundamental course correction for a Democratic Party perceived as one of feckless compromise and incoherence. But is there enough time—or enough will?
Doug Ireland is a New York-based media critic and commentator.
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