{"id":4219,"date":"2005-05-17T11:26:48","date_gmt":"2005-05-17T15:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4219.html"},"modified":"2005-05-17T11:26:48","modified_gmt":"2005-05-17T15:26:48","slug":"the-party-of-national-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-party-of-national-security\/","title":{"rendered":"The party of national security"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can appreciate that it’s a debatable point, but the consensus in many Dem circles is that national security issues, not “moral values,” were the driving force behind Republican successes over Dems in the 2004 elections. With this in mind, I’m encouraged by new party efforts<\/a> to strengthen the Dems’ standing on the issue.<\/p>\n

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are working behind the scenes to bolster their party’s national-security credentials, planning to pose a stronger challenge in a policy area that Republicans have dominated in recent years.<\/p>\n

Polls last year showed that, while Democrats equaled or surpassed Republicans in public approval in a number of policy areas, more Americans trusted President Bush and Republicans to manage the war on terrorism competently. Their perceived supremacy on national security emerged a week after Election Day as a principal reason for Bush’s victory, according to pollsters and political scientists who met at Stanford University last November to parse data.<\/p>\n

Democrats realize that, if they are to be more competitive at the polls in 2006 and 2008, they will have to be more credible in voters’ eyes on security issues. That is the political context for the ramping-up of Democratic activity, led by Reid and Pelosi, in the traditionally GOP-dominated policy area.<\/p>\n

Reid and Pelosi’s national-security staffs are in touch with each other several times a week. Reid and Pelosi aides describe it as “a joint operation.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What this initiative will include is, at this point, still a little vague. It’s not enough to simply be right — Bush’s national record was an embarrassing failure in 2004 but it didn’t translate to Election Day success — so I can only hope Dem leaders appreciate the enormity of the task at hand.
\n
\nThus far, the emphasis has wisely been on getting everyone informed and on the same page.<\/p>\n

On the staff level, Reid’s aides have organized several meetings between about 50 Democratic aides and a group of national-security experts. The experts who have met with staff members include retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO supreme allied commander; Rand Beers, who served as foreign policy adviser to Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) presidential campaign; and Brookings Institution scholars Susan Rice and James Steinberg. Three or four more of these meetings are expected to take place in the next 10 weeks, Democratic aides said.<\/p>\n

The purpose of the meetings is to ensure that Democratic “staff has the confidence and tools to support [Democratic] members” of the Senate as they articulate their party’s position on foreign policy and security issues, said a senior Democratic aide familiar with the meetings. “Reid has the feeling that national security is highly important.”<\/p>\n

An aide to Pelosi said the House Democratic leadership has organized several meetings between national-security experts and lawmakers and aides. The aide also said that Clark has spoken to the Democratic caucus about how to communicate national-security policies effectively.<\/p>\n

Publicly, Reid and Pelosi announced in March the formation of the National Security Advisory Group to advise congressional Democrats on defense and national-security policy. The group is headed by former Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, I realize that’ll take more than just position papers and staff briefings to change mistaken public perceptions. Still, it’s a start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can appreciate that it’s a debatable point, but the consensus in many Dem circles is that national security issues, not “moral values,” were the driving force behind Republican successes over Dems in the 2004 elections. With this in mind, I’m encouraged by new party efforts to strengthen the Dems’ standing on the issue. Senate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}