Every two year, I’ve looked forward to the time coming when a Democratic victory would put an end to the endless post-election game of finger-pointing and recriminations that came after our every defeat. So, I didn’t expect to be playng the same games after we'd won an unequivocal victory.
My complaint here does not apply to local finger-pointing and recriminations about the senseless loss of the opportunity to take away Serph Maltese’s State Senate seat; let’s form a firing squad in a circle and mete out justice to everyone responsible; but, on a national level, it seems a strange way to celebrate. Gingrich had “The Contract on America” (Freudian Slip intentional); Democrats take contracts out on each other.
And yet, here we are. First there is the Dean v. Ford race to head the Democratic National Committee. Many have whined that Dean’s “fifty-state strategy” choked off money which would otherwise have gone to Democrats in some close Congressional races, depriving them of the funds they needed for victory. Others say the strategy was responsible for some unexpected victories. My guess is that credit for the unexpected victories goes to W.
I would be remiss if I didn't point out that there is nothing necessarily “left-progressive” about a “fifty-state strategy”, or “establishment neo-lib” about targeting specific races and triaging the others. Strategy and tactics are means, not ends. There is nothing wrong with “party building” per se, although a recent article in the Sunday Times Magazine pointed out that when Republicans implemented similar strategies, their field people had goals, targets and supervision, while Dean seemed more intent on throwing money at State parties (the promise to do so is exactly how he got to be elected DNC Chair in the first place). Moreover, when one undertakes to finance a “fifty-state strategy”, funding such an endeavor is made far easier when one controls Congress; hence the need for targeting races to get the job done. As such, Campaign Committee Chairs Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel’s targeting strategy made far more sense in the short term. However, now that we’ve won Congress, it’s time to implement a real fifty-state strategy with guns a blazin’.
The left blogosphere has used the anti-Dean maneuvering as an occasion to complain that “their” victory is being hijacked by centrists who want to move the party to the right. Some complain about Schumer and Emanuel’s heavy-handed efforts to maneuver party nominations to candidates they deemed electable, even though such efforts also were responsible for leveraging out loose cannon Ohio eccentric Paul Hackett in favor of super-liberal Sherrod Brown.
But the proof of the pudding is that less than fully liberal John Tester (who was actually the more liberal candidate in his primary), Jim Webb, Bob Casey, and Heath Shuler got elected and handed George Bush a well deserved and humiliating defeat. Some on the left would prefer calling for "The Ninotchka Strategy", which is "fewer and better Democrats". But, going to the center meant we could win, and now we get to implement our policies; more importantly, we get to stop their's. Yes, it is undeniable that most of the new Democratic members of Congress seem more conservative than either Schumer or Emanuel, to name two examples not usually considered heroes of the left. But, what should be clear to everyone is the most important thing: that the new Democratic members of Congress are far more liberal than the Republicans they've replaced. What do you think the odds are we get another Alito now?
Those who don't like candidates who take conservative positions to please their constituents should tell it to NRA favorite Bernie Sanders (or, for that matter, to Dr. Dean). Personally, I prefer the Lieberman position, which is that the right to keep and bear arms has some reasonable limits. Nonetheless, I'm open to the big tent strategy. And the best of of this may be that it isn't only Jim Carville who shares my position; it's Howard Dean.
Despite my criticism of Dean, it seems a silly time to open up new wounds when a show of unity would appear to be the best course of action. It seems a far better course to enact Pelosi/Reid’s 100 day program and dare Bush to use his veto pen, saving our own internal fights for later on. I am especially emphatic about this because the effort to remove Dean seems borne not so much of Rahm and Chuck, as of Bill and Hillary, for the benefit of the latter’s presidential race. And, from my vantage point as a pragmatic Clintonite/DLC, neo-lib, New Democrat, Hillary (now that Feingold has departed and Kerry self destructed) stands as the least pragmatic choice available for 2008. If propping her up is the real reason behind efforts for Dean’s removal, I’ll yell out a hog-call for Howard and the level playing field he ensures, as I prepare to support Bayh, Biden, Richardson, Obama or Gore (the next presidential nominee will pick his own DNC Chair anyway, and it won’t be Howard).
But it is not only the Clintonites who bear the blame for this self-destructive infighting. Our new Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has thrown herself head-first into the race for House Majority Leader, supporting John Murtha, the born-again hero of the anti-war left against her current second in command, establishment favorite Steny Hoyer. Pelosi has thus put the party into an unnecessary and embarrassing position. If Murtha loses, the Speaker will be exposed as a weakened leader before she even starts work, two outs and two strikes before the ballgame starts. It reminds me of nothing so much as Cleavon Little in “Blazing Saddles” putting the gun to his head and threatening to shoot the new sheriff (you didn’t really think I’d actually quote that line, did you?).
The most galling part is that some in the blogosphere and elsewhere on the left have bought the bill of goods that this is some sort of moral crusade; Lord knows that Hoyer bears many of the hallmarks of hackery, but on any measure of hackhood, Murtha is also quite competitive, and almost certainly beats Hoyer in the categories of being investigated and condemned by the House Ethics Committee, as well as for being unindicted but co-conspiring. Electing Murtha is a great way of saying you'll be smashing the Republican institutions of corruption like "The K Street Project", and restoring the old days of "The Bi-Partisan Boodle Wagon" (which may be true, but why telegraph that punch?).
But it is on ideological grounds that this scam deserves the most scrutiny. There is little evidence that, on any foreign or defense policy question outside of Iraq, Murtha is any less hawkish than the admittedly centrist Hoyer. While now and then, Murtha might make a more pronounced gesture in favor of economic populism, each of them has had their heresies in that area, and Hoyer is probably more consistently liberal. And, on most social issues, including abortion and questions of interest to the LGBT community, Murtha is decidedly conservative, while Hoyer is moderately liberal.
This is actually quantifiable. In the year 2000, The Americans for Democratic Action, generally acknowledged as the best judge of such things, gave Hoyer a lifetime liberal rating of 83% and Murtha 56%. Since then, in every year, Hoyer’s beat Murtha: in 2000, 80-55; 2001, 95-65; 2002, 95-55; 2003, 90-85; 2004, 100-50; and 2005, 95-75.
If Pelosi were arguing that supporting Murtha is an gesture for showing the Democrats are indeed a big tent, I might buy it. However, it will be taken as exactly the opposite: the punishment for failures to walk in ideological lockstep, which is just the wrong message to be sending now. Luckily, members of Congress see this neither as an effort at outreach or an ideological crusade, but rather as a struggle over power divorced from actual issues. Of all the fights we don’t need, this is the kind of fight we don’t need the most.
Re-elect Hoyer and Dean.