A Mike Lux Golden Oldie
From Jan 20, 2010. Original HEREIn all the hundreds of thousands of words being written and spoken about the implications of last night's special election in Massachusetts by all the pundits and strategists and drum-beaters for various interest groups, only one thing really matters right now: the character of the leaders of the Democratic party. It is up to them whether this generation of Democrats has the guts to keep moving forward boldly even as they run into resistance and trial, or whether they fall back into the collective character flaw that has held the Democrats, and the country, back for 40 years now: that sense of abiding caution that would have them pull back into a shell at the first sign of trouble and give up on trying to change anything. As I wrote in my book The Progressive Revolution:
In the culture of caution that dominates Democratic politics in the modern era, when you try something big and fail, even if the failure is due in great part to your own timidity, you only become more cautious.
President Obama deserves enormous credit for taking on big tough issues like health care and climate change and financial regulation, but the problem is that the pursuit of these noble causes has become bogged down in the slowness and special interest dominated world that is Capitol Hill right now. The Obama White House has compounded the problem by not taking on the special interests head on and full force, but instead giving in to them on a variety of issues that really mattered to both the Democratic base and to middle class voters: the big banks got bailout money while being asked to do little in return; the drug companies got taken off the hook in order to bring them aboard with health care legislation; the insurance industry won all their big battles on health care, leaving them free from public plan competition or anti-trust worries; polluters got massive set-asides in the energy bill.
Here's the deal: while there are significant differences between Democratic base voters who didn't turn out to vote in very big numbers yesterday in Massachusetts, and the working class swing voters who voted for Scott Brown, these two kinds of voters actually have a great deal in common in terms of what will move them to vote for Democrats:
1. They want big change.
2. They are tired of having wealthy special interests, especially the big banks and insurers, run things in DC.
3. They expect the Democrats to get things done on the big issues of the day- they want jobs created, a better health care system where the power of the big insurers is reigned in, investments in renewable energy, the big banks broken up.
The same debate every political party has after every big loss started up immediately again last night. The completely predictable voices of cautious conservative Democrats are already in the usual high pitch whine: we have to pull back, we have to go slow, we have to not change things so much. The quintessential cautious Democrat, Evan Bayh, spoke for this line of thinking in his usual way:
It's why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massacusetts aren't buying our message. They just don't believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems.
Although he was arguing this in the context of pulling back, the ironic thing is that Bayh was right about one thing: voters really don't believe Democrats are solving their problems. And why is that? Because the big change we promised them hasn't materialized. Because the deals being cut with the bankers and drug companies and insurance industry are not solving their problems. Because going in slow motion on issues like health care has convinced them that we can't deliver.
At this moment, Democrats face the ultimate test of character: do we have the courage to head into the wind of the pontificating pundits and the culture of caution Democrats, and deliver the real change American voters are asking for? Or do we turn tail and run from the challenge? The irony is that doing the gutsy thing is by far the smartest thing Democrats could do politically. If we actually pass health care reform, if we actually go after the big banks, if we actually get things done on immigration reform, we convince swing voters we are capable of getting things done, and we convince our base that we are worth turning out to vote for.
Voters will reward us if we do the right thing. And so will history. When the revolutionary war was going badly for Washington, when the civil war was going badly for Lincoln, when civil rights reform threatened the Democrats in the South for a generation, our leaders did not turn tail and run away from the challenge. They had the courage of their convictions, and they have a special place in our country's history as a result. Now is the time for this generation of Democratic leaders to do the right thing. Voters will reward them in the short run, and history will reward them in the long run.
The most disturbing poll I have seen in this election cycle (for that matter, the most disturbing since 1994) was an NPR poll from June 7-10. It was disturbing in part because it was done by Stan Greenberg- for my money as good as any Democratic pollster in the business- and not some Republican hack polling firm like Rasmussen. What it basically showed was that Democratic arguments, even relatively well framed one, have little credibility with the majority of the likely voters in the 2010 elections. Greenberg tried four different sets of competing Democratic and Republican arguments, and the Republican arguments won each time- by 10, 12, 12, and 13 points. Not a single one of the four was even competitive. In past years, similar lines of debate have tended to favor Democrats, but not this time.
Facing this kind of atmosphere, Democrats on the ballot this year have to make some tough strategic choices. Right now the definitive frame around which this election story is being built is one dominated by the conservative worldview: the problem is big government, which is over-reaching and ineffective.
Democrats (those on the ballot this year, and the party as a whole) have two possible options in the face of this bad framing and credibility issues.
I detail those options, and more, in the extended entry.
In all the hundreds of thousands of words being written and spoken about the implications of last night's special election in Massachusetts by all the pundits and strategists and drum-beaters for various interest groups, only one thing really matters right now: the character of the leaders of the Democratic party. It is up to them whether this generation of Democrats has the guts to keep moving forward boldly even as they run into resistance and trial, or whether they fall back into the collective character flaw that has held the Democrats, and the country, back for 40 years now: that sense of abiding caution that would have them pull back into a shell at the first sign of trouble and give up on trying to change anything. As I wrote in my book The Progressive Revolution:
In the culture of caution that dominates Democratic politics in the modern era, when you try something big and fail, even if the failure is due in great part to your own timidity, you only become more cautious.
President Obama deserves enormous credit for taking on big tough issues like health care and climate change and financial regulation, but the problem is that the pursuit of these noble causes has become bogged down in the slowness and special interest dominated world that is Capitol Hill right now. The Obama White House has compounded the problem by not taking on the special interests head on and full force, but instead giving in to them on a variety of issues that really mattered to both the Democratic base and to middle class voters: the big banks got bailout money while being asked to do little in return; the drug companies got taken off the hook in order to bring them aboard with health care legislation; the insurance industry won all their big battles on health care, leaving them free from public plan competition or anti-trust worries; polluters got massive set-asides in the energy bill.
Here's the deal: while there are significant differences between Democratic base voters who didn't turn out to vote in very big numbers yesterday in Massachusetts, and the working class swing voters who voted for Scott Brown, these two kinds of voters actually have a great deal in common in terms of what will move them to vote for Democrats:
1. They want big change.
2. They are tired of having wealthy special interests, especially the big banks and insurers, run things in DC.
3. They expect the Democrats to get things done on the big issues of the day- they want jobs created, a better health care system where the power of the big insurers is reigned in, investments in renewable energy, the big banks broken up.
The same debate every political party has after every big loss started up immediately again last night. The completely predictable voices of cautious conservative Democrats are already in the usual high pitch whine: we have to pull back, we have to go slow, we have to not change things so much. The quintessential cautious Democrat, Evan Bayh, spoke for this line of thinking in his usual way:
It's why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massacusetts aren't buying our message. They just don't believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems.
Although he was arguing this in the context of pulling back, the ironic thing is that Bayh was right about one thing: voters really don't believe Democrats are solving their problems. And why is that? Because the big change we promised them hasn't materialized. Because the deals being cut with the bankers and drug companies and insurance industry are not solving their problems. Because going in slow motion on issues like health care has convinced them that we can't deliver.
At this moment, Democrats face the ultimate test of character: do we have the courage to head into the wind of the pontificating pundits and the culture of caution Democrats, and deliver the real change American voters are asking for? Or do we turn tail and run from the challenge? The irony is that doing the gutsy thing is by far the smartest thing Democrats could do politically. If we actually pass health care reform, if we actually go after the big banks, if we actually get things done on immigration reform, we convince swing voters we are capable of getting things done, and we convince our base that we are worth turning out to vote for.
Voters will reward us if we do the right thing. And so will history. When the revolutionary war was going badly for Washington, when the civil war was going badly for Lincoln, when civil rights reform threatened the Democrats in the South for a generation, our leaders did not turn tail and run away from the challenge. They had the courage of their convictions, and they have a special place in our country's history as a result. Now is the time for this generation of Democratic leaders to do the right thing. Voters will reward them in the short run, and history will reward them in the long run.
I just returned from a long trip out West, and will be writing more about that tomorrow AM
With the dizzying twists and turns of these last several days on health care, we still don't know where things will lay once the dust settles after what promises to be a very high drama ending before the August recess. We shouldn't be giving up hope that a good bill can be achieved, because the drama has not played itself out yet, and the August recess period itself - with the question of whether strong health reform proponents or astrodurf defenders of the status quo will win the passion and organizing battle - will be crucial in deciding this bill's fate. But one thing is absolutely clear from what has happened over the last week: fundamental change has not come to Washington, D.C.
Big business lobbyists, in this case from the health insurance industry, still have more power than the President. The media establishment, for all their lost audience and credibility, still have the ability to drive a negative conventional wisdom story about how change is impossible. And Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, out of a combination of caution and the fear of these aforementioned lobbyists, still don't have the ability to deliver transformational change. The kind of change Barack Obama based his campaign around is, so far, nowhere to be seen.
This inability to change Washington is all the more remarkable given the events of the past few years. George W. Bush simultaneously expanded Presidential power, and destroyed the Republican Party brand. Democrats won sweeping historical victories two elections in a row. Voters proved they were more open to bigger historical change than anyone would have predicted just a few years ago, electing an African-American son of an immigrant with an African-Muslim name, a candidate who beat the strongly favored establishment candidate of his party by running a campaign calling for big change. The economy collapsed in a more dramatic fashion than in any way in American history except for the Great Depression.
You would have thought that with all that dramatic change and upheaval going on in such a short time, that Democrats would have been able to be bigger and bolder in their thinking. But they seem to be stuck in the business-as-usual ways of doing things. The strangest thing is that, for all the boldness of at least some of Obama's proposals such as health care reform, the day to day legislative tactics seem to reinforce the business-as-usual thinking on Capitol Hill: the apparent unwillingness to twist arms of the Blue Dogs in the House, the empowering of the uber-cautious Max Baucus in the Senate.
Could we still get the kind of big change Obama promised? Anything is possible. Both FDR and Lincoln moved to the left and accomplished their best and biggest changes later in the Presidencies, and the pace of change picked up in the mid-1960s after JFK had struggled early in the decade. And more big events could certainly shake things up. But, while I am normally more of an optimist than many people about what is possible, I fear the worst if health care reform becomes whittled down to nothing very substantial, or even fails entirely. If there is an iron law in politics, it is this: winning makes you more powerful and confident, and losing makes you weaker.
If the insurance industry wins on health care reform by beating Obama soundly on bigger, more transformative change, it will strengthen and embolden every other big special interest. The energy companies on climate change, the big banks on financial reform, and every other special interest lobbyist Obama has said he would tame will be laughing at the failure of bigger health reform, secure in their knowledge that nothing has changed in Washington, D.C. And as the economy sputters along and nothing has really changed that would help regular people, conservative Republicans will be laughing their way to the next election. There is still time to turn the ship in a new direction, but right now it is looking more and more like we're heading straight into a big iceberg.
There's an old folk song made popular by Peter, Paul, and Mary called "When Will They Ever Learn?" Right now, that feels like the operative question for today's Democratic Party.
There's been a fair amount of commentary in the blogosphere about David Brooks column in the New York Times the other day asserting that not one, not two, but four different "senior" Obama officials reached out to him after a critical column to assure him that, in Brooks' words, they are not "a group of liberal crusaders," and that they are not "engaged in an ideological project to overturn the Reagan Revolution."
The most important battle at this moment in politics isn't actually the one between Democrats and Republicans. We Democrats won that convincingly in November (and two years prior to that as well), and are winning it overwhelmingly in public opinion polls. For the moment at least, the Democratic-Republican thing is less a fight and more of a rout. For now, the more important battle is between Obama's own progressive vision of big bold change vs. the DC establishment (including many Democrats, some of whom work for the President) and conventional wisdom.
President Obama, in his speech Tuesday night to the Congress and the nation, has called on us to think big, be bold, and make major change. He has said that he wants a fundamental reform of health care to provide universal coverage and real cost containment, that he wants to re-structure our fossil-fuels based energy system, that he wants major change in our system of public education, that he wants to completely rebuild and restructure our financial regulatory system. Obama has described his already-passed massive economic recovery package as only a first step toward fundamentally rebuilding our economy.
These truly are big, bold ideas- and thank goodness they are, because these gigantic problems we are facing will not be solved by small, cautious solutions.
More of what I'm talking about in the extended entry.
By "it", of course, I refer to the great post-election debate: why did we win? Far more importantly, now that we did win, what should we do now?
I have been predicting for six months now that on the Thursday after the election, assuming a win, we would start hearing from conservative Democrats and the establishment punditocracy about how we need to go slow, not over-reach, be careful. The only thing I was wrong about was the timing: with Obama clearly ahead in the polls, the not-overreaching calls began early, and have been well-chronicled on the pages of OpenLeft. Many of these calls, actually most now that I think about it, include references to Bill Clinton's "over-reach" in 1993-94 that caused the Democrats' downfall in the 1994 elections. This post, written from the perspective of someone who was in the Clinton White House and who studied in detail what happened in the 1994 elections, will walk through why this argument is dangerously wrong for Obama and the Democrats in 2009.
Assuming all goes as we hope, and Obama is our next President; we have bigger Democratic margins in the House and Senate; it is my belief that Obama will either be huge success or a massive failure (not to put too much pressure on you, big guy). I think our problems are just too big, and the decisions Obama and the Democrats in Congress have to make are just too monumental, for there to be any middle ground. Either Obama's going to come out of this mess looking like he saved the country from disaster, and go down as another FDR or Lincoln, or he's going down in history as the Presidents who preceded FDR and Lincoln and failed- James Buchanan or Herbert Hoover- awash in massive problems they were unable to solve. For the sake of the country, the Democratic Party, and the progressive movement, we'd all better hope it's the former.
The difference will be whether he pushes to be, and succeeds at being, a transformational President, or whether he goes toward what Digby calls neo-Hooverism: that sense that we need to be frugal, cautious, slow, careful, and all other things center-right. Massive problems cannot by solved by halting half-steps, crisis cannot be resolved by too much caution.
As readers of OpenLeft know, I am one of those folks who personally doesn't like to criticize the Democratic Presidential nominee once the general election campaign gets underway. For me, as I have written, whatever faults they exhibit in the campaign almost never outweigh the risk of doing anything to damage their chances of winning. I believe in gritting my teeth and muttering curses to myself whenever they disappoint me, but not saying much critically in public and doing whatever I am asked to do to help the team win.
However, when the campaign is drifting seriously off course and threatening their chances to win, I make an exception on the no criticism rule. And I fear we're reaching that point. I think I know what the problem is, too. It's that Capitol Hill Caution has taken over the campaign.
As many of you know, Drew is a professor of psychology at Emory University who is probably the leading researcher in the country as to how people's brain react when they are thinking about politics. Drew wrote a book called The Political Brain, which talked about how people react to politics more instinctually and emotionally than in a linear way and that politicians who campaign primarily by talking about 10 point plans and House Resolution 2459 are likely to lose. The book also showed how networks in the brain are activated by certain words and symbols, and why it's important for political leaders to understand how those networks work. Regardless of what people think about the particular rational point that you make, they could easily get turned off if you activate the wrong associations in their brain (e.g., gun control, which trips over a fundamental American value about independence, as opposed to "common sense gun laws," with which most voters-including gun owners-actually resonate).
Drew and Stan Greenberg and I began talking several months ago about doing a project where Drew's ideas on political issue messaging were thoroughly tested in a real-world political context using more traditional polling techniques. We wanted to see if, through trial and error research, we could come up with ways to frame messages on some of the most controversial issues that are out there that would win over the broad majority. With the support of some forward-thinking progressive donors (the project took 10 months and hundreds of hours of work), we were able to do the research, and to look at some of the hottest button issues around - among them gay marriage, immigration, guns, national security, and taxes - and discovered that for the most part, progressives can win solid majorities for their stands on these issues even in regions and demographic groups not normally thought of as progressive.
Every two years, after the election is over, Democrats have a big debate, but they take two different forms. If we lose, it's a debate why we lost, with the DLC and their allies always arguing, without fail, whether there is a single bit of data to back them up, that it's because Democrats went too left and too populist. If we win, it's a debate over what to do with our victory, with the DLC-style Democrats warning vigorously against over-reaching, and cautioning Democrats to be slow, careful, and incremental in whatever policy changes they pursue.
If, as seems quite possible (I'm too superstitious to say likely) today, Obama wins and Democrats pick up several seats in both the House and Senate, the debate over what to do with the victory will be joined especially fiercely. For the first time in sixteen years, and the only time over almost three decades, Democrats would control the Presidency and both the House and the Senate by significant margins. With a new President having run on the themes of hope and change, the expectations among the public for real change will be sky-high.
That's why this debate will be so crucial. Establishment insiders, and their cynical allies in the media, will be doing everything possible to stamp out the flames of hope and change, but the public will be expecting our party to step up to the plate and actually deliver the goods. Insiders will be yammering on about filibusters and bureaucracy and Obama's inexperience and committee jurisdictional battles, and how hard it is to get things done. And Democrats' "wise men" will be counseling Democrats to not over-reach, take your time, don't do anything too fast, don't do anything too big or bold or dramatic.
Given the size of our problems heading straight at us down the highway like a Mack truck, and the expectations of the general public, Obama and Democratic leaders need to be bold and big in their approach. The don't over-reach Democrats are going to start their calls for caution immediately- I would predict an op-ed in the Washington Post will appear on November 6th, the Thursday after the election, from Al From or Bruce Reed or Joe Klein or David Broder, or maybe from all of them, advising Democrats to be very slow and careful and bipartisan in their approach to issues. We in the progressive movement need to be ready, assuming such a wonderful Election Day comes as we hope, to immediately and vigorously engage the debate as to why we need big change, not the politics of caution.
I think one of the biggest differences between progressive and establishment Dems is that the latter are convinced that only more moderate or conservative Democrats can win in swing and lean Republican districts. I think this is flawed thinking for a couple of reasons:
I have started thinking that one can easily categorize Democrats in Washington, D.C. into two major categories: those who are scared about just about everything, and those who are confident and aggressive. You can make mistakes on either side of that divide, but I would sure as hell make them by being too aggressive rather than by being too scared. The ones who are scared of Republicans seem to be scared about everything. Scared about what Republicans will do to them on security issues; on the immigration issue; on social issues; on civil liberties issues; on taxes. Scared about being too much of a "class warrior." Scared about seeming too partisan. Scared about being too hard on business. And finally, scared about how likely the Republicans are to win.
That brings me to my main topic, which is that I frequently hear talk from my establishment friends about how tough the congressional map looks for us. We'll be very lucky to keep our majority, they say. So many of the districts we have are Republican districts. We have so few opportunities to pick up seats, etc. etc. ad finitum.
So I decided to immerse myself for a couple of days into the congressional district numbers to decide for myself what the truth is. What I discovered is that there is certainly an element of truth to this spin, but there is also a lot wrong with it as well.
It's not my idea, but from a comment (here, I think) I read in the last day or two that evidently stuck in the back of the mind for a bit, fermenting.
But it's a great idea, which taps a political reality that needs exploring.
The proposition, then, is that the Dem Congressional leaderships - in a thoroughly counterintuitive way - do not want to find themselves at the start of the 111th (which we assume will give the Dems the trifecta) with the kind of majorities that some have been suggesting are possible, what with the general disenchantment with the GOP, an above-average tally of open GOP House seats and a sophomore surge helping the 06 freshmen.
Let's run through the arguments supporting the proposition:
The math in the 110th House has been blissfully simple, to give the rough average numbers not counting empty seats: 200 GOP, 235 Dems, 70 Progs, 40 Dogs.
Thus,
on a party-line vote, the Dems are comfortable;
if all the Dogs team up with all the GOP, they win (but only just);
if all the Progs vote against a measure, it can only pass with GOP support.
Instrinsically, the Progs are weaker than the Dogs: the Dogs have the GOP to the right to ally with in opposing a measure, the Progs have no one to the left.
But, as the FISA bill will hopefully illustrate, that does not mean that they are without leverage.
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