Democrats are fighting again over the direction of their party. But contrary
to the conventional wisdom, that's a good thing.
The 2004 presidential nominating process is the first real chance Democrats
have had to define their party in a dozen years. The outcome of this struggle
will determine whether the Democratic Party's candidate has a chance to
defeat Bush and to succeed as president.
For the party and the country, the stakes couldn't be higher. That's
why we've urged Democratic presidential candidates to follow President
Clinton's successful strategy; seize the vital center, not to veer left.
To some on the left, that advice is "fighting yesterday's wars."
We only wish it were the case. Despite the unprecedented social and economic
progress the country made under a Democratic president in the 1990s, no
Democrat will take back the White House in 2004 unless he works as hard
to recapture the trust of ordinary Americans as Bill Clinton did in 1992.
Even die-hard liberals admit that Democrats needed some midcourse corrections
in the 1980s to win back moderates who felt the party had lost its way.
But they argue that this mission was accomplished, and that now the party
can only win by doubling back to energize its liberal base.
We're all for turning out the Democratic faithful, but energizing the
liberal base is simply not enough to win a national election. For the
past decade, the American electorate has been 30 percent conservative,
20 percent liberal, and 50 percent moderate. There's a reason Clinton
was the only Democrat elected and re-elected president in six decades.
He inspired Democrats, but also went after the independents and moderate
Republicans he needed to win an electoral majority.
Whether we like it or not, the doubts Democrats worked so hard to put
to rest in the 1990s -- that we love government and taxes too much,
and care about security and values too little -- are back. Twice as
many Americans think Republicans, not Democrats, have a clear, positive
vision for the country. Three out of four voters trust Republicans more
than Democrats to keep the country safe in a dangerous world.
No wonder that this year Gallup has consistently found more Americans
identifying themselves as Republicans than Democrats. In a recent Gallup
survey of party identification, 31 percent of Americans consider themselves
Democrats, 34 percent consider themselves Republicans, and 29 percent
consider themselves independents. It will take more than fuzzy math to
unite or energize 31 percent into a majority.
We won't overcome those odds by continuing to preach to the converted,
only louder. More than ever, Democrats need a compelling agenda that excites
not only our core supporters, but also the vast ranks of ordinary Americans
with no ties to either party who stand the most to lose from a second
Bush administration and the most to gain from a Democratic one.
Some partisans continue to spread the myth that Democrats did poorly
in the 2002 midterm elections because the party's message was too centrist
to rally the troops. That diagnosis is flat wrong. In states with competitive
races, the Democratic base turned out at higher levels than in the last
midterm elections -- and that wasn't enough to win. To the extent there
was a national Democratic message, it was a conventional liberal, not
centrist, one: the familiar formula of playing to the party's perceived
strengths by attacking Republicans on Social Security and promising new
spending on prescription drugs, instead of working to shore up the party's
weaknesses on national security and defense. The unsurprising result:
Swing voters swung to the Republicans.
Of course, for some on the left, the real target is Clintonism, the movement
to modernize the Democratic Party's agenda and build a new progressive
majority in the vital center. Over the past decade, the left opposed many
of Clinton's signature initiatives, including NAFTA, the crime bill, welfare
reform, and the balanced budget. Some liberals honestly believe that Clinton
presided over a decline in the Democratic Party because of his successful
pursuit of swing voters, ignoring the fact that he left office more beloved
by the party base than any president since FDR.
As Clinton demonstrated, the choice we face is not between principles
and pragmatism. We don't have to compromise our beliefs to win back America's
trust. On the contrary, we need to live up to the Democratic Party's best
traditions: Jackson's belief in equal opportunity for all, special privileges
for none; Roosevelt's passion for bold reform; Truman's tough-minded internationalism;
Kennedy's ethic of civic obligation; and Clinton's insistence that opportunity
and responsibility must go hand in hand.
Fidelity to those traditions offers the best platform for winning over
a country that remains skeptical of both parties. A Democrat who is not
afraid to use American power in dangerous times, who wants to reform government,
not just expand it, and who offers a plan to grow the economy and increase
middle-class incomes, not the middle-class tax burden, can beat Bush in
2004. A Democrat who fails to overcome Americans' lingering doubts about
security, or who raises new doubts by promising to increase government
as dramatically as conservatives hope to shrink it, will not.
Once again, rank and file Democrats understand this far better than the
Washington elites who profess to speak for them. Recently, Gallup asked
Democrats whether they preferred a candidate who shared their view on
almost all the issues, or a candidate who could beat George Bush. Nearly
two-thirds of Democrats -- including 69 percent of liberals -- said
they would rather have a candidate who can defeat Bush.
Bush's record-shafting the forgotten middle class and helping only the
wealthy when he promised to help the poor -- will do more to get our
core voters to the polls than overheated rhetoric or overblown promises.
The Bush White House desperately hopes that Democrats will follow the
advice of many on the left and make the next election an ideological contest
between liberals and conservatives. That's the one battle Republicans
know they can win, and never have to answer for the worst economic record
since Hoover.
By all means, Democrats should have the courage to tackle big problems
and take on entrenched interests. The Bush years have created a long list
of unfinished business -- restoring an ethic of responsibility in Washington
and in corporate America, asking more Americans to serve, rewarding work
instead of wealth and privilege.
The way for Democrats to recapture the high ground and the White House
is not to spend big, but to be genuinely bold. We need a president who,
unlike Bush, won't give away money the country doesn't have. We need a
president who doesn't think a new tone in Washington means putting his
party's special interests first. Most of all, we need a president who
won't just tell his friends what they want to hear, but will ask more
of Americans and give them the chance to do better.
For some, sounding the alarm about the urgent need to expand and deepen
Democrats' appeal may seem like yesterday's war. To us, it's the only
thing that will keep Democrats from becoming yesterday's party.
Blueprint Keywords: Extra Five Myths
