WONDER LAND
URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110004432
Godfather II: Gore Makes Dean an Offer
Don Corleone would fit right in as Democratic Party boss.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Monday, December 15, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
Maybe Saddam's capture changes the dynamics of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. But I doubt it. Change of direction is not something that comes easily to this party anymore. Al Gore's grandly public endorsement of Howard Dean last week confirms my view that the easiest way to understand the Democratic Party today is by watching "The Godfather."
Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying they are crooks. What I am saying is that the Democratic Party has the look, feel and smell of a very old institution. It must move about in the real world but is determined to remain insulated from it. Sen. Hillary Clinton, who somewhat resembles Morgana King (Mama), said recently that President Bush was a "radical," that he was trying to "undo the New Deal." Sen. Clinton was speaking of a way of life, which she believes to be honorable, however antique its rituals may seem to modern eyes. It's their thing, and like Michael Corleone, the most you can hope to achieve in life is to control it.
If you are willing to think in these terms, much of what is going on in the Democratic Party begins to be understandable. It has power, and it bestows benefits. President Bush is not someone waging a war on global terror, but is simply a man who is a threat to them, and the system through which they bestow benefits and therefore survive.
I think of Bill Clinton as the Don Corleone of the Democratic Party. In the organization, there is no one above him. Terry McAuliffe is his Tom Hagen, who talks to the outside world. I leave it to others to fill out the rest of the cast.
The events inside the Democratic Party leadership now are very serious, unlike the past 10 months. When Al Gore took Howard Dean's hand into his own in Harlem (an insult to Bill Clinton and Al Sharpton), everyone in the party knew that the party's organizational structure, controlled by the Clintons, was being challenged. Mr. Gore will either win this struggle for control, or retire to Vegas to run a talk show.
Now, in "The Godfather" you saw that everyone adhered to an elaborate and formal system of courtesies, as in the phrase, "senatorial courtesy." But when Tessio betrayed the Corleones, when these men made decisions from which you could never go back, they did not bother with the courtesies. They only offered explanations later, when they were doomed.
Al Gore did not extend Sen. Lieberman the courtesy of a phone call. And Dick Gephardt and John Kerry, former associates in many old battles against the Republicans, they too did not receive a call. Nothing personal. As Hyman Roth said in his life-is-tough speech to Michael Corleone, "Politics is the business we have chosen to be in."
Al Gore doesn't care what the press thinks of what he did to Joe Lieberman. After this act of political ruthlessness, he gains the respect of the pols. Al Gore gave Howard Dean what Howard Dean couldn't get on his own--"stature," proving that other than Bill Clinton, he is the only person in the Democratic Party who can bestow stature. On Saturday, the Los Angeles Times said it had convened a poll of the party's 450 local and state leaders; 32% have thrown in with Mr. Dean, with Messrs. Gephardt and Kerry down near 15%.
It has been talked about among the cognoscenti for some weeks now that the new Dean organization, if he secured the nomination, would challenge the Clintons' control of the party apparatus, meaning mainly the cash flow from contributors and the unions. But I thought it more likely that if Mr. Dean got the nomination, he would be visited over a table in a nice restaurant, the Palm in Washington, by Mr. McAuliffe and Harold Ickes, who would explain that he could win the presidency with them, but not without them.
With this understanding, an alliance of partners would result. The old organization and its traditional sources of income--the patronage mills, the government contracts, the public-bond issues, the legal jobs--would survive, and Mr. Dean's people would be given significant control, maybe half. Now it's not so clear that Howard Dean needs to cut a deal with the Clinton factions, because maybe the factions aren't so close to the Clintons anymore.
Inside the organization, Mr. Gore has never been Bill Clinton's equal, not even when he ran for president. But kingpins can fall. Bill Clinton showed weakness by allowing his stature to be associated with Wesley Clark, an outsider, who turned out to be a weak candidate. The old order can miscalculate, and collapse. The word was put out that Howard Dean's candidacy was a problem because the candidate's views and volatility would be a hard sell in the contributor salons run by Wall Street Democrats; a "hothead." But Mr. Dean's operatives unlocked the power of the Internet to drive street money toward his campaign. New power flows to the new kingmakers, like Al Gore. He will be talking to men like George Soros, new men with new money.
Some are suggesting that Mr. Gore's Dean endorsement looks unprincipled, or that the internal contradictions of the Gore-Dean alliance--are they centrist? liberal? progressive?--are confusing and therefore destructive for the party's chances in the election.
Maybe. But politics is more than ever a mass-market phenomenon. Whatever else, mass-marketing is short on ideas and high on emotion, which means it's currently well-suited for the Democratic Party. I think Al Gore gets this.
Until the party evolves a new ideas package, which despite nine active candidacies isn't happening, its best bet is to muscle another Election 2000 voter-turnout miracle. Ideas and beliefs? The party faithful restate the old ways every day to discrete cells of believers via new pathways of communication such as MoveOn.org, a Web site run by people out of a house in Berkeley, which overnight became a new force in the party.
For a Democratic Party now rooted almost wholly in ancient beliefs, the candidate mainly has to be a willing, charismatic vessel of the believers' mass energy. I don't think there is any other explanation for Howard Dean's remarkable success. Amid loathing of George Bush, fear of war, even a just war, and the aura of community created by the Internet, Howard Dean becomes the man, the one.
It may still add up to only 42% of the November vote and Mr. Dean evaporates. But so what? In "The Sopranos" the feds win occasionally, and take some guys off the street. The organization remains. Al Gore is in place. He is aligning himself with the progressive foot soldiers who make the party run. Hillary will remain the darling of the Old Media families and a contender. But if the Gore-Dean alliance attracts more party regulars, Bill and Hillary will have to give Al Gore a call. When's the last time that happened?
Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com. |
