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March 30, 2005

Dem leadership AWOL on Schiavo and elsewhere?

Arianna Huffington thinks so.

Ever since November, Republicans (aided and abetted by a poorly worded exit poll) have not only succeeded in defining the last election as having been about moral values, they’ve succeeded in defining moral values. In the GOP’s extraordinarily abridged moral dictionary, fighting against gay marriage is morally valuable; fighting against 12 million children living in poverty is not.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been going through the most embarrassing public identity crisis since Anne Heche couldn’t decide if, when it came to the bedroom, she preferred surf or turf. They’ve been mastering the feeble arts of second-guessing themselves and ducking for cover.

While real political leadership is determining the direction the country needs to go and convincing the public to follow you down that road, Democrats keep choosing the path of least resistance. Party leaders have been sticking their fingers in the air, feeling which way the political wind is blowing, and then chasing after these zephyrs of public sentiment. Which is bad enough. But making matters much, much worse, they are consistently misreading the wind — an affliction that has led to their being blown away in three straight elections.

Meanwhile... David Corn in his twice monthly column for TomPaine.com argues that the cowardice of Congressional Dems might actually pay dividends should Senate Republicans pull the trigger on the so-called "nuclear (that's nu-ku-lar to Dubya) option" over Bush's judicial nominations being stymied by Senate Dems.

It's possible that by not creating a big political fuss, the Democrats unintentionally helped shape the Schiavo affair into a one-party controversy. This was a Republican deal, and a large majority of the public—including many Republican citizens—came to believe that crass politics, not values, were motivating Bush, DeLay, Denny Hastert, Bill Frist and the others. And if the Republican campaign was indeed values-driven, then why did DeLay and the rest not seek further action (even Supreme Court intervention) when the federal courts refused to revisit the Schiavo case? Was it because that by this point the first wave of polls had hit? It's true, as many pundits have stated in recent days, that those most likely to mutter "Remember Terri" when they enter a voting booth in 2006 will be people who fervently looked for the DeLay crowd to intervene. (They'll probably be appreciative of the GOP efforts, though the more extreme advocates of Schiavo's parents might resent the Republicans for having not done enough, such as sending in the National Guard.) But perhaps the DeLay maneuver will also shift the terrain in Washington in a favorable direction for Democrats concerning at least two high-profile battles to come: judicial nominations and stem cells.

Corn makes a really good argument there, in my view. Republicans have really set themselves up with a potential double-whammy. On the one hand a very large majority of average everyday Americans seem to fault them for meddling in the Schiavo case for presumed (majority agreement on that too) political rather than moral reasons. And on the other hand the extremist Right has been galvanized by the Schiavo case and may very well not passively accept less than their entire wish list, with respect to judicial nominations - a sore point for them, as they have in the past. That really could potentially put the GOP in a very difficult position where they're almost damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Meanwhile Reuters reporter Alan Elsner argues that the Schiavo case has hurt both parties.

In a country bitterly divided between Republican "red states" and Democratic "blue states," many citizens seemed angry with both parties and have made up their own minds, pollster John Zogby said.

Republicans who uphold principles of limited government, states' rights and the sanctity of the marital bond were upset their leaders had become involved. Democrats seemed upset that their leaders had mostly stayed silent on the issue.

I think what he's getting at there is that the same large majority who fault the GOP for meddling in what they see as a private affair also blame the Dems for not standing up and defending that right to privacy. In essence, the same issue is motivating anger at both parties, albeit for different reasons. However, if David Corn's scenario comes true then I should think that would almost totally mitigate the anger at Dems by focusing it solely on Republicans. But, that can only happen if Congressional Dems find their backbone between now and then.

Posted by Kevin at March 30, 2005 12:13 PM