Bill Daley was secretary of commerce in the Clinton administration and chairman of Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.
By William M. Daley
Thursday, December 24, 2009
The announcement by Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith that he is switching to the Republican Party is just the latest warning sign that the Democratic Party — my lifelong political home — has a critical decision to make: Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come.
Rep. Griffith’s decision makes him the fifth centrist Democrat to either switch parties or announce plans to retire rather than stand for reelection in 2010. These announcements are a sharp reversal from the progress the Democratic Party made starting in 2006 and continuing in 2008, when it reestablished itself as the nation’s majority party for the first time in more than a decade. That success happened for one major reason: Democrats made inroads in geographies and constituencies that had trended Republican since the 1960s. In these two elections, a majority of independents and a sizable number of moderate Republicans joined the traditional Democratic base to sweep Democrats to commanding majorities in Congress and to bring Barack Obama to the White House.
These independents and Republicans supported Democrats based on a message indicating that the party would be a true Big Tent — that we would welcome a diversity of views even on tough issues such as abortion, gun rights and the role of government in the economy.
This call was answered not just by voters but by a surge of smart, talented candidates who came forward to run and win under the Democratic banner in districts dominated by Republicans for a generation. These centrists swelled the party’s ranks in Congress and contributed to Obama’s victories in states such as Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado and other Republican bastions.
But now they face a grim political fate. On the one hand, centrist Democrats are being vilified by left-wing bloggers, pundits and partisan news outlets for not being sufficiently liberal, “true” Democrats. On the other, Republicans are pounding them for their association with a party that seems to be advancing an agenda far to the left of most voters.
The political dangers of this situation could not be clearer.
Witness the losses in New Jersey and Virginia in this year’s off-year elections. In those gubernatorial contests, the margin of victory was provided to Republicans by independents — many of whom had voted for Obama. Just one year later, they had crossed back to the Republicans by 2-to-1 margins.
Witness the drumbeat of ominous poll results. Obama’s approval rating has fallen below 49 percent overall and is even lower — 41 percent — among independents. On the question of which party is best suited to manage the economy, there has been a 30-point swing toward Republicans since November 2008, according to Ipsos. Gallup’s generic congressional ballot shows Republicans leading Democrats. There is not a hint of silver lining in these numbers. They are the quantitative expression of the swing bloc of American politics slipping away.
And, of course, witness the loss of Rep. Griffith and his fellow moderate Democrats who will retire. They are perhaps the truest canaries in the coal mine.
Despite this raft of bad news, Democrats are not doomed to return to the wilderness. The question is whether the party is prepared to listen carefully to what the American public is saying. Voters are not re-embracing conservative ideology, nor are they falling back in love with the Republican brand. If anything, the Democrats’ salvation may lie in the fact that Republicans seem even more hell-bent on allowing their radical wing to drag the party away from the center.
All that is required for the Democratic Party to recover its political footing is to acknowledge that the agenda of the party’s most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans — and, based on that recognition, to steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan.
For liberals to accept that inescapable reality is not to concede permanent defeat. Rather, let them take it as a sign that they must continue the hard work of slowly and steadily persuading their fellow citizens to embrace their perspective. In the meantime, liberals — and, indeed, all of us — should have the humility to recognize that there is no monopoly on good ideas, as well as the long-term perspective to know that intraparty warfare will only relegate the Democrats to minority status, which would be disastrous for the very constituents they seek to represent.
The party’s moment of choosing is drawing close. While it may be too late to avoid some losses in 2010, it is not too late to avoid the kind of rout that redraws the political map. The leaders of the Democratic Party need to move back toward the center — and in doing so, set the stage for the many years’ worth of leadership necessary to produce the sort of pragmatic change the American people actually want.
So Democrats should be LESS true to the base of their party, yet Republicans (presumably) should be MORE true to the base of their party.
That makes no sense.
This piece coming from Obama’s mayor’s brother is as much directed at the ballerina, Rahm Emanuel, as it is to the Messiah. It didn’t take long for both of them to be unmasked as dishonest, disloyal (to country and party) liberals with a socialist agenda. The real message here is “you’re a disaster, pal, and you’re taking us down with you”. Not even the Chicagoans will be able to buy themselves out of the coming 2010 election disaster that Obama and Rahm are creating for the Dems.
NEVER has the country had a worse President — an empty suit beholden to the radicals that helped him into an office he is so very unqualified for. God help us all as we have three more years of this idiot.
I disagree with this assessment. The problem with Obama is that he hasn’t done anything about the economy or jobs. He doesn’t display any sense of urgency, or a sense that people are suffering. When the Black Caucus asked him to confront the joblessness in their districs, he dismissed them as grumblers. Obama is very arrogant, no doubt about that.
Furthermore, many low information voters voted for Obama based on personality rather than the issues. Once the ‘it’ factor fades, people like that tend move on to the next fad. Many of these voters are Independents, which explains why is his approval numbers are falling.
Some of these Democrats have no solution to anything except move to the center. We have seen the disaster from Republican, Milton Friedman economic policies. They have caused a global econmic crisis. We need to move away from that model.
Obama doesn’t care about this because he is hoping to undermine democracy by empowering far left radical groups (e.g., seiu and acorn). He is
* rewriting election rules – hurting parties and helping Acorn
* rewriting labor rules – a) political secrecy (unions need no longer disclose political spending) and b) minority rule (allow a minority of workers to force the rest into a union)
* employee forced choice act (card check) – (pending) do away w/ union secret ballot elections
his agenda is a government dominated by far left labor radicals (your tax dollars at work)
You should study labor history. Without unions, laborers would be making a dollar a day like they do in third word countries. Why do you think we have a minumum wage, an eight hour work day, the concept of a weekend? The labor movement.
As for Obama being beholden to the “left,” that is a joke. Obama is beholden to the corprations who put him in office. Corprations such as Goldman Sachs, his #1 contributor, and the health insurance industries. This whole right wing narrative that Obama is a Marxist, only works on people who don’t know what Marxism is.
Sunny, what a ridiculous and false dichotomy. That’s like saying someone pulls out a gun, says “I’m gonna kill you”, and pulls the trigger, you can’t call them an attempted murderer unless they actually kill you.
Such a contemptuous statement about the intelligence of the average citizen is catnip to one like me. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the voice of the elitist intellectual.
The few examples the Left can give showing where Obama doesn’t cowtow to the Marxist line are just figureheads. He can safely displease the Black Caucus as an organization, while each one of the congressional members take his name back to their districts and represent their relationship. And these are districts where Obama approval tops 70%.
If Sunny wants to have a conversation about Marxism, let Sunny start with arguing there.