The Democrat's Problems

Over the weekend I saw various articles and posts about the current struggle for control of the Democrats. It boils down to some problems for them. Here's a run-down:

Governing. In retrospect it is obvious that the Democrats were not looking past the 2006 election. Their strategy was to recruit moderate candidates in possible swing districts in order to pick off vulnerable Republicans. This worked out fairly well for them as far as electing members of the party but it is causing headaches for them now. While the rest of the party has headed to the left, many of the new members are moderates, or even slightly conservative. This is especially true on defense. These new moderates quickly organized into the Blue Dog Democrats and vote against the liberals on some issues. There has been some talk of the Republicans still holding a working majority because of the Blue Dogs.

New Ideas. Do the Democrats have any new ideas? The new book, The Argument, says that they do not. The author, Matt Bai, points out that anyone debating what name to give to their ideas does not have anything new to offer. I've seen this countless times - the left insisting that the public is with them on the issues but votes for the Republicans out of ignorance. I sort of disagree with Bai. The Democrats do have a new idea - it is to become "progressive". This involves a hard turn to the left on virtually every issue. This is where they have their friction with the Blue Dogs.

Just look at the platforms of the Democrats running for president to see how this is playing out. They are currently engaged in a bidding war for how much their universal health care will cover. Over the weekend, Edwards upped his bid by including mandatory physical and mental check-ups.

While it is true that the Democrats have become much more progressive, I don't see much indication that the rest of the country has. Yes, the Democrats won a majority in 2006 but they were not running on a progressive platform at the time.

Reform. This is what the Democrats were running on in 2006. The issues they used were runaway federal spending, influence peddling in exchange for earmarked funds, and the need for a "new direction" in Iraq. Bush provided the new direction with the "surge". The Democrats have done nothing about other issues. Earmarks have increased as has spending. A lot of effort has gone into the fight between the progressives and the moderates with nothing to show for it.

History. Did the Democrats win in 2006 because voters preferred them or because a Republican president was in his 6th year? Historically, the opposing party usually wins seats in the 6th year. Even Reagan lost the Senate in that election. This does not mean that the country has shifted politically. Bush (41) won in 1988 and Gore almost won in 2000 even though their parties had comparable Congressional losses in 1986 and 1998. This means that the 2008 election is not a sure thing. Congressional approval is at a historic low which could easily turn into a backlash against over-reaching Democrats.

Net-Roots. The net-roots are not only focusing on electing Democrats, they are also concerned with "better" Democrats. Look at the Leiberman/Lamont fiasco. They spent a lot of effort trying to replace a long-time Democrat because he did not follow the net-roots line on the war. For a while they hated Leiberman as much as Bush and hailed his loss in the primary as one of democracy's greatest triumphs. Forcing a national party into an idealogical lock-step is a problem since it does not allow any room for centrists.

The net-roots are important in an election because of the amount of money they spend but they are independent of the party and are trying to force their views on party members. They are a difficult-to-manage group. Most of the white-hot hatred of Bush and the conspiracy theories come from this group. They control a lot of advertising money and some office-holders are members so the Democratic leadership has to take them seriously. At the same time, they are pretty far out of the mainstream and their vision of the party might not be electable.

Bush. Since 2000, the Democrats have defined themselves partly through their hatred of Bush. He will not be part of the 2008 campaign. Candidates running against Bush will seem dated.

A different problem - Bush was never a great candidate. He won against two stiff, wooden Democrats who came across as rich members of the DC establishment. The Democrats may have a more articulate candidate in 2008 but the Republicans will also. The current front-runners are all much better at public speaking than Bush. Hillary still comes off shrill, Obama makes mistakes, and Edwards has image problems. None should be considered a sure-thing against a charismatic Republican with a competent campaign.