Twenty years ago at the Democratic National
Convention in San Francisco, a small group of
governors, members of Congress, and party
leaders gathered in anticipation of a pending
landslide defeat to discuss how to save a dying
national Democratic Party.
We decided that our party's future success rested on what we stood for -- our values, beliefs, and ideas -- and our ability to get things done. Nine months later, we formed the Democratic Leadership Council to re-instill our party with a sense of national purpose and to modernize it by offering new approaches to promote enduring Democratic values.
Today our political needs are very different. But the importance of our mission is, in my view, greater than ever -- not just for our party, but for our country and the health of our political system.
By following the Clinton-DLC formula, the national Democratic Party has recovered nicely. Today's Democrats, led by John Kerry and John Edwards, stand on the precipice of becoming a majority party again. Our party's challenge is to build that durable governing majority.
As Americans, we have an even greater challenge -- to transcend the increasingly bitter partisan division and polarization that, left unchecked, could threaten the very foundation of our democracy.
I believe we can meet both of those challenges by offering practical, progressive solutions for solving the major problems facing our country -- as I believe John Kerry and John Edwards will do in this campaign and in the White House.
To me, one of George W. Bush's greatest failures is breaking his campaign promise to be a uniter, not a divider. Despite two unprecedented opportunities to pull our country together -- after the 2000 election and after 9/11 -- he has governed in a way that has increased partisan polarization, not reduced it.
Bush promised to work with Democrats in Congress. He didn't. In the first two years of his administration, party voting in Congress was more polarized than at any point in recent history. According to Congressional Quarterly, members voted the party line more often than at any time in the previous 35 years.
We all pay for that failure. Polarization spawns an angry tone in politics where civility is diminished -- and, too often, candidates mistake their adversaries for their enemies. That diminishes voter turnout, and erodes the strength of our democracy.
But while politics is becoming more polarized and ideological, the country is not.
According to the National Election Studies at the University of Michigan, voters are less inclined today to identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans -- and more likely to identify themselves as independents -- than they were one half-century ago. And, during the past 25 years, the electorate has become increasingly moderate.
The result is what columnist Robert J. Samuelson calls "a growing disconnect between politics -- and political commentary -- and ordinary life."
There are many reasons for that disconnect. The increase in negative campaigning and the politics of personal destruction clearly divide and alienate voters. Gerrymandering in congressional redistricting has reduced the number of competitive seats, meaning that congressional elections are increasingly decided in primaries, not general elections, a surefire formula for pushing the parties to the extremes. The parties themselves have become more ideological with the decline of the moderate Northeastern Republicans and moderate and conservative Southern Democrats. And, in the information age, ideological and narrow issue groups can get attention and raise funds in ways they could only dream about one decade ago.
So what's to be done? Reforming the redistricting system to allow more competitive seats would be a good start. And, allowing independents to vote in party primaries would mean that all voters would be fully enfranchised in our electoral process.
But in the end, the surest way to reconnect our politics and our people is to rally them around big ideas and solutions to our country's biggest challenges that transcend partisan divisions. These include providing affordable health care for everyone, achieving energy independence, helping people prosper in an ever more global economy, and offering Americans more chances to serve.
We know it can be done because we've done it before. Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill joined forces to give Social Security a new lease on life. Bill Clinton worked with a Republican Congress to replace welfare with a work system.
That's why it is so critical that we keep our politics intellectually dynamic -- and not ideologically rigid. The DLC has kept the Democratic Party intellectually vibrant for nearly two decades. For the sake of our party -- and our democracy -- we need to keep doing it.
