The Democrats in Power?
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As a moderate, Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) type liberal, I am very pleased with the projections for this November’s Congressional elections. MajorityWatch, which performs running averages of polls in each House district, has 222 House Democrats leading outside of the margin of error with only 218 needed to take a majority. There’s a chance, albeit small, that the Democrats could take as many as 227 or 228 seats. In the Senate, the Democrats are assured of victory in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and will probably win in Montana and Rhode Island. Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri are up for grabs, and the Democrats will have to win two of three to take the Senate. Nevertheless, the Democrats will pick up several seats and make it harder to pass legislation at a bare minimum.
But what I am even more pleased about is the political bent of the Democrats standing for election. Moderates like Harold Ford, Jr. in Tennessee and Claire McCaskill in Missouri are making Democrats competitive in states that have not been for years. These are the centrist Democrats, sounding a moderate message, that disappeared during the Democrats’ turn in the wilderness after the 2000 defeat. The party’s most visible figures for years have been mostly coastal liberals that have limited play in flyover territory, most notably the specter of Howard Dean. But both Dean and probable House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have taken somewhat of a backseat in this election to the Democrats’ new faces and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Rahm Emanuel.
This is a good direction for the Democratic Party. Pelosi has said in several interviews that she wants to be Speaker more than two years, meaning that she has to pursue policies that will ensure that the Democrats do not get themselves thrown out and doom their presidential candidate in 2008. While the polls show a very high level of discontent with the Republicans, and the Congressional leadership in particular, they do not show a correspondingly high level of support for Democratic policies. The American people seem to want moderate policies and an active, efficient Congress, and it appears that Pelosi realizes that the rabid Democratic base needs to be contained. She cannot carry out endless numbers of investigations under the overly aggressive Henry Waxman, who is in line to be House Judiciary Chair, or force the U.S. presence in Iraq in an entirely new direction, considering the precedent set by President Bush in terms of maintaining almost total control over the war effort. She will have to pursue moderate policies to avoid a Republican re-takeover in 2008 or 2010.
The alternative for the party is far worse. The Democratic base, represented most virulently by the blogging community, the exemplars of which include DailyKos and Atrios, has been relatively quiet after their puppet Ned Lamont’s defeat of Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary (who is currently 14 points up in the polls). They, luckily, want to win more than they want ideological conformity. It is likely that if the Democrats fail to take either house of Congress, recriminations will conclude that the party did not adopt a liberal enough line in this year’s election and needs to move further to the left for 2008 and nominate someone like Russ Feingold for president. This, of course, would spell disaster for the party and prolong its time in the political wilderness for another decade or so.
So it appears that things are not as dire as they appear for conservatives worried about huge tax increases or impeachment motions. The Democrats will not, and cannot, tack far to the left, because it is clear that they will be thrown out again in two years. Republicans have far better message control and in a country where 33% of people define themselves as “conservatives” and only 24% define themselves as “liberals,” it is hard for the Democrats to win on the issues alone. Had the Republican Congress remained competent over the past two years, it is likely that the Democrats wouldn’t have a chance at picking up seats, considering the lack of a real coherent message coming from the party this year. What is essentially happening is that the people don’t want to vote for Republicans and the Democrats have made themselves a palatable alternative, something that has not happened for the past few elections on a nationwide basis.
A Democratic Congress will be a far less radical step than many pundits are making it out to be, and that is a good thing. The country is won and lost in the center, and that is where the Democrats have positioned themselves.
