It’s the war, stupid

September 23, 2006

How are Democrats going to approach the midterm elections? We’ve been getting some conflicting reports. Roll Call suggested this week that Dems are going to do what they did in 2002 and 2004.

Forced to play defense on national security for the third election year in a row, Congressional Democrats have been huddling in recent days to try to sharpen their attacks on the one issue they believe puts Republicans on the run: the economy.

“We’ve been aggressively pushing back on these national security issues that we know are on their turf,” said a senior Democratic aide. “Now we want to go on our turf.

“We’ve got to go on the offensive and keep our eye on the ball — and that’s the economy.”

A couple of days later, The Hill suggested the opposite.

Congressional Democrats plan to hold Iraq war hearings on Capitol Hill and around the country, turning an election spotlight on an issue much as the GOP did with immigration during the summer recess.

The Democrats’ will highlight the fact that they intend to go toe-to-toe with Republicans on the issue of national security, believing that this election cycle it can play to their advantage rather than to their detriment as it has in elections past. […]

Democrats said they will follow up that hearing with field hearings around the country at least through November. They argue that Republicans have neglected to provide proper oversight of the war in a number of areas, including postwar planning, troop readiness and care for troops and veterans.

So, which is it? It’s probably a little bit of both, though The Hill seems more on point.

To suggest that Dems are ignoring the war to focus attention on the economy just isn’t true. In the last two weeks, the Senate Dem Leadership has done nine events — one of them dealt with the economy, the other eight addressed Iraq and national security. What’s more, October will be nearly all-Iraq, all-the-time, in terms of events and campaign messages. Dems can be a little slow, but the leadership learned in ’02 and ’04 that trying to change the subject to the economy doesn’t work when the Republicans are telling voters Dems are weak on terror.

Ezra put in a few calls yesterday that flesh out some answers.

So I called up some folks in the Democratic leadership to ask them whether the story was truthful. The answer I got was “sort of.” There are certain campaigns — like Amy Klobuchar’s in Minnesota, and Sherrod Brown’s in Ohio — that are pounding in a primarily economic message as that’s what voters are worried about there. But the national messaging from the Democratic leadership has been almost all national-security focused. […]

Given the ineptitude of recent Democratic campaigns, it’s natural to assume this one will be no different. But the truth is my aide friends were right: There’s been very little messaging on economic matters, and a pretty significant amount on national security and, mainly, Iraq. The DCCC press releases archive offers little save corruption and Iraq, while on the Democratic Senate Caucus’s page, there is a massive banner for “The Real Security Act of 2006: Learning the Lessons of 9/11,” and their newsroom is little different.

All of this is quite encouraging and suggests the Roll Call piece was off-base. That is, until I saw Kevin Drum’s post about Howard Dean’s WSJ op-ed.

[I]t contains only one short, fuzzy paragraph about national security at the very end. Essentially, he just ignored the whole issue. That’s very, very dumb.

There are 45 days until the midterm elections. Is it too much to ask that the party figure this out quickly?

Is it too much to ask that the party figure this out quickly?

Yawn. Hmmm? What’s that? Oh, an election. Yawn. For a moment there I thought it might be something important. Like “Idol” or “Survivor”, ya know?

  • I spend a lot of time hoping for a pony amidst the BS that seems to be the Democratic national leadership. I’m almost to the point where I am ready to admit there is no pony. Talk to me on November 8th.

    I was very disappointed and wary when I heard that Harry Reid was going to leave the debate on torture to the Republicans to sort out. I think that sense of unease has been validated. The Dems seem enamored of the idea that they simply need to get out of the way of Republican implosion. They do not seem to understand aggression (or even its kinder cousin assertiveness) – either as a tool or as something against which they must constantly offer rebuttal. I think they should have chosen “accountability” as a general theme because it fits every issue. Bush is a failure and the master of bait and switch. SOMEONE must hold him to account. Talk about how he failed, what you offer differently and always in the vein of letting Bush know that 2004 wasn’t the last “accountability moment” of his presidency. But, when I saw Nancy Pelosi dance around the idea of John Conyers chairing the Judiciary committee and (the horror!) holding hearings, my heart sank. I think the Dem leadership cannot find its way out of a permanent defensive crouch, and is inspirationally catatonic. If they capture any House of the Congress in November, I believe it will be in spite of them and not remotely because of them.

  • “The Dems seem enamored of the idea that they simply need to get out of the way of Republican implosion. ” – TuiMel

    Very well said. I think it also has been the Congressional Dem’s philosphy for some time, that the meek shall eventually inherit Congress. One component of this Republican perfect storm of bad government of the last six years has been the complicity of the Dems to take this sitting down. The party needs of infusion of energy to go on the attack, like Clinton did wth Chris Wallace. The Dems need to fire all of their politcal advisors and start running on their own political instincts.

    A frequent comment on this and other blog pages has been “where’s the outrage?” I certainly don’t feel like the Dems have shown their outrage on more than just a few occasions. It’s time to get even guys.

  • Do we really want them to get their act together? I mean, really???? After watching my fellow Democrats these last years, I honestly do not think there is any hope left. I am more scared of them winning than them losing.
    As I state in Wake Up America , they went back to sleep after 9/11, while some of us woke up.

  • Early adopters are always standing around, scratching their heads, wondering why everyone else isn’t in a lather over X or psyched about Y. To most of us the clock is ticking rapidly down. To most Americans – including most voters – the clock isn’t even an issue yet.

    I won’t be happy if Democrats refuse to engage national security above all else. But I’m not going to freak out about a lack of messaging when most of the people the message would be aimed at are getting their kids back into school or grousing about all the leaves they’re going to have to rake in a couple of weeks.

    Dean’s op-ed was a single op-ed. I don’t think it was meant to be a signal flare. If and when the Dems roll out whatever message they intend to roll out, I don’t think any of us is going to be confused about what it is.

  • Vote absentee ballots, there is still time to sign up. The voting machines don’t yet control that method of voting. Our only chance is to get rid of ALL our so-called representatives.
    When I saw John Kerry disappear the day after the 2004 election, I knew there was no hope. The democrats and republicans all work for the same people; special interests such as oil, pharmacy, and funded by all major corporations. Look at the people in the congress. They are all millionares, and long ago lost all interest in the welfare of this nation.
    I am appalled at what the US government has become. It is dictatorial, narrow and has lost all moral standing on the world stage.
    They are discussing microwave guns to use for crowd control; if they use it on our own people, they cannot be seen as a horror in foreign lands. Microwave literally cooks from the inside out, it is a terrible thing to even consider, let alone plan to use on protesters. Nothing was said to counter it, democrat or republican.
    I find it very unnerving to live in a society akin to German in 1938. When will people wake up and throw all these people out of office. Use absentee ballots, please! That is the only avenue left offering a fleeting chance to recover our nation from these idiots.

  • When the debate centers on national security issues it favors Republicans; when it focuses on domestic issues it favors Democrats.

    Of course, the party has to engage both foreign and domestic concerns particularly when the country is at war.

    Also I agree with b Wilder that JT Henderson at Intel Dump is quite goodat clearly expressing the failures and abuses of the Bush administration, as are a number of others.

    Americans want to get rid of the Republicans. They just aren’t sure if they want the Democrats.

  • Has it occured to any of you that maybe the Dems don’t object to the Republican’ s national security strategy basically because they are in agreement with it? Sure, they may quibble over certain details, but essentially — with the exception of a few marginalized figures like Feingold — they are all part of the military-industrial-complex and have a stake in the status quo.

    I don’t doubt for a moment that, had he been in the White House, Gore wouldn’t have invaded Iraq, but the struggle for control over the resources in the Middle East would have continued, in one form or another, regardless.

    The Dems are a big part of the problem. It is time to acknowledge this and move on.

  • Does anyone recall that Dean’s candidacy in 2004 was all about the Iraq war? That he was probably one of the first candidates to come out against the war, and remained the strongest on that subject until he got bounced out in Iowa (and even, sadly, for a long time afterwards)?

    I don’t think Dean has taken his eye off the ball. I think he learned a lesson in 2004, and is leaving the topic for the real foreign policy heavyweight Dems in the House and Senate to take the lead on that.

    Much as I admire Dean and his courageous stand against the war right from the begninning, he knows that, as former governor of a landlocked state with only one congressman, he doesn’t have nearly the foreign policy cred to be the spokesperson on this issue. However, as former governor of a rural state with only one congressman, he knows a lot more than anyone gives him credit for about how to appeal to small-town America, and I think his 50-state strategy is essential and is working brilliantly so far. I’d rather have him stay focussed on building a Democratic infrastructure in say, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Missouri, etc, than on flying back and forth to foreign capitals.

    If anything, it’s Dean’s infrastructure that’ll help bring the war issue home to the small towns across the country that have lost their sons and daughters to it.

    • Comments are closed.