Democrats’ lack of “intellectual infrastructure”

There was an article in the Wash Post last week about the rising prominence of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), and the respect she has earned from her colleagues. While I was glad to see the report — I’ve always greatly admired Sen. Clinton — my interests in the article were a little more parochial than a positive feature on a favorite politician.

In case you missed it, the article noted that among the many projects Clinton has taken on, she has been working with several leading Democrats, under the leadership of John Podesta, chief of staff under Bill Clinton, to create a new “activist think tank” in Washington. As the article described it, the institution is being designed to “crank out policy ideas and disseminate them to voters.”

This is music to Carpetbagger’s ears. I have long complained about the lack of a genuine Democratic/progressive public policy organization and the negative consequences felt from its absence.

Some of you may have never even heard of a “think tank,” especially if you’ve never worked in DC. These are basically professional research organizations that employ scholars and researchers to produce analysis intended to influence public policy debates in government.

Over the last 25 years, political conservatives, who felt frustrated by the left-leaning nature of academia in U.S. universities, began embracing and creating think tanks to advance their ideas. Their impact cannot be overstated. Groups such as the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute have literally helped drive the conservative agenda since the early days of the Reagan administration.

For example, in the early 1980s, conservative ideas such a space-based missile defense system and privatizing Social Security were considered fringe concepts, bordering on bizarre. Think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, easily the most successful and influential of them all, took a long-term approach and found success. They published position papers and short texts on the issue, hosted high-profile forums for lawmakers and their staffs, and worked with the media and talk radio in a consistent and deliberate attempt to shift the political discussion. Slowly but surely, it worked. Ideas that were once considered too ridiculous for politicians to consider are now “mainstream.” (On a more timely note, many conservative think tanks in the 1990s began working on “regime change” scenarios to advance American interests in the Middle East. I guess the work paid off.)

Just as importantly, groups like Heritage have created what sports teams would call “farm teams.” In other words, young bright ideologues get their start writing and researching for a right-wing think tank, they work with Hill staff, and they become “experts” in their field. Lawmakers, governors, and even presidents, then hire think tank staffers to actually implement the ideas they care deeply about.

And what of the left? There are no major liberal think tanks in America. None. There are some narrowly focused liberal think tanks — such as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities — which do exceptional work, but no group on the scale and scope of the right’s Heritage, Cato, and AEI.

The Brookings Institute, which some may argue is the left’s answer to the Heritage Foundation, clings to its centrism like a newborn to its mother. Brookings’ last president was a Republican, and the group proudly embraces several conservative ideas, such as transferring tax dollars from public schools to private religious ministries through vouchers. Not exactly “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,” if you know what I mean.

That’s why I was so pleased to see that Podesta and Clinton were making a serious effort to create a new institution. As Hillary explained, “It would be a tremendous indictment of us” if Democrats do not create new groups to “make sure the point of view we think is needed can be heard.”

I couldn’t agree more. Carpetbagger has believed for years that what Democrats truly lack is something I call “intellectual infrastructure.” The right has it, the left needs it.

As a practical matter, it works like this: A group of conservatives comes up with one of their wacky ideas. One of their many think tanks begin researching the issue, and produce pseudo-scholarly work (which, of course, isn’t peer reviewed) that prove the idea would work. The think tanks use their influence to share the ideas with lawmakers, Hill staff, cabinet officials, even conservatives in academia. Soon, a sympathetic House member is willing to introduce the idea in legislative form. Talk radio hosts and Fox News Channel begin to cover the “innovative” approach to the given issue, and the think tank’s representatives are invited to appear on programs to explain to the right-wing grassroots why this idea is so great. Soon, real journalists start to hear about the idea, so mainstream news outlets begin to report on the initiative. Even if the House legislation that was introduced fails the first time, it doesn’t matter. The debate has already shifted. A once wacky idea is now being debated in the halls of Congress and on news broadcasts nationwide. Eventually, if it hasn’t already, the idea will be part of the conventional wisdom in Washington, and sooner or later the idea will come to fruition.

The left desperately needs this kind of infrastructure. Here’s to hoping the Podesta/Clinton group is successful.