AMID all the celebrating over the Democrats taking control of the U.S. House and Senate in the 2006 elections, I hear a faint hollowness in the exuberant self-congratulations among local to national Democrats.
When historians sit down to analyze the major forces that contributed to the Democratic victory at the polls on November 7, the reasons will not be that Democrats had the best political strategy nor that Democrats had the clearest vision for the future of the nation.
I’m convinced the chief reason for the Democratic victory will be identified as blatant Republican corruption and gross incompetence. Primary factors include the mistaken and mismanaged war in Iraq, the failure to respond effectively to Hurricane Katrina, indictments of Republican lawmakers and lobbyists, and the cover-up of a Republican lawmaker’s sexual misconduct with minors. For these and related errors and hypocrisies, a majority of Americans simply withdrew their support from the Republican Party.
Republicans lost the right to govern the country because they’ve governed the country so badly.
Democrats did field a lot of excellent candidates, to be sure, and not all were successful. For example, Colorado candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats Nancy Paccione and Bill Winter, lost their respective races against ultra-conservative Republican incumbents Marilyn Musgrave and Tom Tancredo. In other races, Democrats barely squeaked by, such as Virginia Democrat Jim Webb replacing incumbent Republican Senator George Allen by only 0.39 percent of the votes.
A progressive Democratic agenda cannot be credited for a victory. While many progressive Democrats did retain their seats in Congress, to the best of my knowledge, all the new Democrats elected to the House and Senate are moderates or conservatives. The political views of the nation remain right of center. By no means can we say the country has swung to the left.
The sad truth is that the Democratic party still lacks a cohesive, inspiring vision of how they want to govern the United States. Democrats are great at identifying campaign issues, such as jobs, education, health care, social security, and national security. Knowing the bridge and wedge issues in a race, however, is not the same thing as having a practical plan for how to resolve those issues. Knowing what voters care about in the world is not the same thing as having a vivid picture of the world you want to create, a vision that moves people’s hearts and minds and souls, a vision that stirs people into taking action.
The Republican vision is simple and clear: Small government with low taxes and plenty of personal freedom. Never mind that the current Republican administration has given us the largest, most expensive, most debt-ridden government in the history of the United States. Never mind that the current Republican administration has waged the most aggressive assault on civil liberties in U.S. history. Never mind that the Republican myth is not the Republican reality. The myth still wins votes.
I believe that Republicans lost the 2006 election because they strayed too far and too obviously from their own myth. American voters could no longer pretend the lie was the truth. Everyone could now see that the emperor wore no clothes. His self deception was laid bare.
Democrats, on the other hand, like to speak in reverent tones about such lofty values as the common good, shared prosperity, social justice, and world peace. Few Democrats now in or out of office, I contend, actually have a plan to realize those American dreams.
Further, I’m convinced the Democratic Party leadership actively resists developing a new vision of governance that would share power with the common people. In 2005 I served on a committee of the Denver Democrats to work on a 2006 campaign communication strategy. We quickly realized that a communication strategy is pointless without a compelling message to communicate.
The committee devoted weeks to discussing the concept of “branding” the party. Every time I mentioned the need to focus instead on developing a message that proposes a far more inclusive, more empowering philosophy of governance, I was shot down.
The last straw for me was when a high local party official attended our meeting and essentially told me to stop talking about direct democracy. “We decided the issue of representative democracy long ago,” he said, “and we’re not going to question that decision now.”
And yet the matter of citizen empowerment is the fundamental question that Democrats must address if they hope to win again in 2008. If the Democrats in the House and Senate show themselves to be no more honest or competent than the batch of rascals we’ve just voted out of office, since the political cant of the country remains right of center, Republican may well resume control of government in two years.
Unless the Democrats can offer a bold vision of genuine democracy that can move the population back to the center or toward the left, unless the Democrats offer a more liberal or libertarian view of government’s limited role in our personal lives, unless Democrats take a strong stand for world peace growing from inner peace, I’m concerned that history will repeat itself. As was the case this year, I’m concerned that Democrats may not actually win the 2008 election. I’m even more concerned that, next time, the far-right Republicans will not lose.
It is totally amazing how we go back and forth from republicans to democrats. Each side lies, cheats, and never lives up to their campaign promises. People were sick and tired of the republicans to the point that people stopped listening to them. What was their answer? Start a new republican party under the guise of “THE TEA PARTY” and make people think it is something new even though their gatherings are plauged by republicans making speeches. They constantly talk about taking their country back but then they’re going to give it right back to the republicans to do with as they please. A Tea Party friend of mine says of any election, “I know what I’m voting for I just don’t know WHO yet.” To him it doesn’t matter who runs against a democrat or what they believe, he knows the worst person in the world would be better than a democrat. Our polititians want to keep this country divided so they can stay in power. If we’re busy fighting among ourselves we don’t keep track as good as we should what our reps. are doing. The only looser in any election lately is the people because they aren’t voting for what they believe, they’re voting for what they are told they should believe.
The Democrats won because they presented hope to the American people. The Democrats presented the best candidate to repair the damage created by the Republicans. The damage is huge. The American people understand that someone must stop the bleeding caused by the policies of the last eight years. If the damages are not corrected, the patient (The USA) may die. Also, most people understand now that the Republicans have always presented a myth to the people regarding their vision. Only the rich Republicans benefitted from their myth of small government. Cutting taxes for the those with the most money and the trickle down theory must have caused the rich to laugh at all the people who were waiting for money to trickle down to them. We knew that when the Republican said they believed in the right to work, it meant they wanted to break trade unions so they could lower wages so that profit margins could increase. We knew that Republicans wanted to change the rules on credit cards so they could charge more interest rates, some as large as loan sharks( 28% to 40% ) while banks offered its customers 3 and 4 percent on their money. We noticed that much was wrong, but the media very seldom reported the truth regarding the dangerous trend which began to occur in the business world. Businessmen became predators. That is why the Republicans lost. They were greedy. No one was protecting the consumer. That is why Republicans lost. They deregulated business practices that destroyed the infrastructure of our economy. That is why the Republicans lost. Bush started two wars and said we had a volunteer army. But when the men served their time over seas and fought in the war, they were not allowed to leave. They were no longer allowed to volunteer. They were drafted to continue serving. Thats why the Republicans lost. That is not personal freedom which the Republicans say they believe in. This was a draft. We know they believe in small government, low taxes, and personal freedom for the rich. Most of the people in Government do not have their children in the wars. Also, They destroyed the middle class. So our hope is in the Democrats who seem to care about the average man. Americans do not want to discuss myths. We want a party in charge who understands and cares about the average man. So, Americans have turned to the Democrats. Thank God Almighty. The Democrats won the election. The party who give the people hope and inspires the electorate to cast their vote for them won the election. The vision of the Democratic Party is : To Develop a plan to restore our economy, Revive the Middle Class by providing affordable health care for all, stopping the flow of jobs overseas and providing good paying jobs for Americans, fixing social security, and education, rescuing our core cities, ending the war in Iraq responsibly, winning the War in Afganistan, etc. If you can not see that vision, The American voters could.
I agree with Louis, but I also agree with Judah that Democrats lack a compelling vision for running the country better than the Republicans. And I agree that if the Democrats do not develop that vision, if they just keep talking about the same old issues without offering a new plan, they may not stay in power in 2008.
By the way, the headline got me to read the blog posting. Very provocative.
The author seems to hold a very different view of the election than most people. In my mind, the Democrats now control the House and Senate, so the Democrats won the election. Who cares how they won? Maybe the Republicans did blow it, big time, but I still say the Democrats won, big time.