When Bill Clinton confessed with the requisite lip-nibble that he had tried marijuana but never inhaled, he typified the malady of the Democratic Party. “Don’t inhale” makes for a fitting mantra for a party that is willing to taste just about any well-polled position but lacks the fortitude to ingest its pronouncements.
Democrats have been soul searching lately – or, more accurately, poll searching. In case you’re waiting for one of these asses to inhale, don’t hold your breath. Hillary Clinton called for an bill to ban flag burning. Nancy Pelosi initially rejected appeals to withdraw from Iraq. House Democrats who once skewered Bush for failing to engage our allies turned apoplectic over the Dubai port deal. It seems most Democrats will put any position up to their lips but only long enough to savor the wisps of blown smoke.
The Democrats look schizophrenic, but who can blame them? About every politico old enough to tickle a keyboard has come up with his own grand strategy for the Democrats. Impeach Bush! No, focus on solutions! Steal moderate Republicans! No, whip up the base! Get out of Iraq! No, finish the job! No, don’t talk about the war! So the great debate continues.
This is not a presidential election, so why are we looking for a national strategy? Universal marketing and slogan-making is one thing. A series of vaguely indignant “Had Enough” commercials with provocative montages of Katrina and Iraq could push some undecideds over the fence. But a national policy strategy would be counterproductive. The Big Blue Donkey Barn stows both pacifists and foreign policy realists, multinational businessmen and Pittsburgh steel workers. Beefed-up gun control might work in New Jersey, but banning shotguns in Montana is like banning the espresso shot in Manhattan.
K Street and Blog-kingpin Daily Kos should take caution before taking aim at a national policy strategy, because there’s no overarching policy agenda to stretch across the big tent. In 2004, Brian Schweitzer won the Montana governorship (a state Kerry lost by 20 percent). He has spent a record high on education, extended health care and increased wind and solar power. How did a Democrat take Montana? Schweitzer combines a progressive agenda promoting energy, education and entrepreneurship with a frontiersman mentality: He’s fiercely anti-gun control in a state with a seven-to-one gun/citizen ratio. Note to Kos: All politics is still local.
But this overshadows the deeper problem of over-democratization. Blogs and poll numbers provide a steady stream of feedback for politicians, who turn our most common gut-responses into their policy positions. We say we hate their guts, when we really hate ours. The tragedy is not that our politicians track polls like seismographs, but that We the Polled expect our representatives to keep their heads when their constituents are losing theirs. The Information Age has truly brought democracy to the people. Now we’re all asses.
Derek Thompson is a Medill junior. He can be reached at [email protected].
