Take a message
Josh Marshall looks askance at Frank Rich's column yesterday (Time$elect). Rich blasted away at the Democratic Congressional Committe for not having a strong "message" on which all candidates can rally around this November.
Thatt's certainly true, and who can deny that it would be nice and self-affirming if Democrats could all just "unify" and be "on message" all the time the way Republicans are so often able to do. See last week's rubber stamp of "steely resolve" in Iraq for an example of that...and an example of just how well that works as a principle for governing the nation. But Democrats are too big a party, with too large a constituent base to every be wholly unified. It's a messy party. It's a messy country.
Further, Josh is right. Voters in November won't be voting for the party message; they'll be voting for individuals, and those Democrats who will win will be those who effectively tie the Republican he or she is running against to the utter disaster that has been Republican majority rule, and ask, per Newt's advice, "Had enough?"
But there's something else in Rich's column that's been troubling me. It seems to be conventional wisdom lately amongst liberal writers that Democrats need to voice a plan for how to deal with Iraq. They seem to take a manic glee in undercutting the party's efforts to retake the House by pointing out, again and again, that Democratic leadership is failing to take a position on how to conduct the war.
I've been frustrated as well, but does Rich really believe that "articulating the least-disastrous Iraq exit" is going to go unmolested by Karl Rove's attacks? And what plan is Rich articulating? A "timeline" that isn't arbitrary? What would that be? I suppose he imagines all kinds of "metrics" against which U.S. troops could be removed (number of trained Iraqi forces, number of suicide attacks, etc.). But are we really to have any confidence in metrics provided either by the Malaki or Cheney administrations?
Think about it. What plan would "unify" the Democratic party? Indeed, what plan would bring together a clear majority of voters. I think the ambiguity of the Democratic leadership, frankly, reflects the ambiguity of voters right now. The majority now know in their gut they've been lied to in the run up to war and that the Bush administration has mangled its execution. But I also think that the majority, in their gut, want a pull-out but have no idea how or when to do it. In their gut, they have come to believe those who are certain a premature pull-out be a repeat of Beirut and Mogadishu.
So I'm not sure Democrats have a lot of options here, and I'm not sure what it buys them in presenting a "plan" they have no means to execute with the Cheney administration still in power for another two and a half years.
I ask this not to be snarky...or at least with slightly less snark than is customary: Is there a plan out there that takes in the reality of the situation in Iraq (on the verge of civil war) and Washington (the Cheney administration in charge) and proposes a legitimate plan for ending the occupation? I haven't seen anything better yet than the idea of just giving every Iraqi citizen freedom and a puppy.
The war is going so badly that it's hard to imagine how the Democrats, fractious as they are, could fail, particularly if the Republicans insist on highlighting the debacle, as they did last week by staging a Congressional mud fight about Iraq on the same day that the American death toll reached 2,500. As the Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio wittily observed in April: "The good news is Democrats don't have much of a plan. The bad news is they may not need one."
Thatt's certainly true, and who can deny that it would be nice and self-affirming if Democrats could all just "unify" and be "on message" all the time the way Republicans are so often able to do. See last week's rubber stamp of "steely resolve" in Iraq for an example of that...and an example of just how well that works as a principle for governing the nation. But Democrats are too big a party, with too large a constituent base to every be wholly unified. It's a messy party. It's a messy country.
Further, Josh is right. Voters in November won't be voting for the party message; they'll be voting for individuals, and those Democrats who will win will be those who effectively tie the Republican he or she is running against to the utter disaster that has been Republican majority rule, and ask, per Newt's advice, "Had enough?"
But there's something else in Rich's column that's been troubling me. It seems to be conventional wisdom lately amongst liberal writers that Democrats need to voice a plan for how to deal with Iraq. They seem to take a manic glee in undercutting the party's efforts to retake the House by pointing out, again and again, that Democratic leadership is failing to take a position on how to conduct the war.
On the war, Democrats are fighting among themselves or, worse, running away from it altogether. Last week the party's most prominent politician, Hillary Clinton, rejected both the president's strategy of continuing with "his open-ended commitment" in Iraq and some Democrats' strategy of setting "a date certain" for withdrawal. She was booed by some in her liberal audience who chanted, "Bring the troops home now!" But her real sin was not that she failed to endorse that option, but that she failed to endorse any option.
Like Mr. Bush, she presented a false choice — either stay the course or cut and run — yet unlike Mr. Bush, she didn't even alight on one of them. This perilous juncture demands that leaders of both parties, whether running for president or not, articulate the least-disastrous Iraq exit option that Americans and Iraqis can rally around. Time is running out. The new Brookings Institution Iraq Index cites a poll showing that 87 percent of Iraqis want a timeline for American withdrawal, and 47 percent approve of attacks on American troops. A timeline does not require, as Mrs. Clinton disingenuously implies, an arbitrary "date certain" for withdrawal.
I've been frustrated as well, but does Rich really believe that "articulating the least-disastrous Iraq exit" is going to go unmolested by Karl Rove's attacks? And what plan is Rich articulating? A "timeline" that isn't arbitrary? What would that be? I suppose he imagines all kinds of "metrics" against which U.S. troops could be removed (number of trained Iraqi forces, number of suicide attacks, etc.). But are we really to have any confidence in metrics provided either by the Malaki or Cheney administrations?
Think about it. What plan would "unify" the Democratic party? Indeed, what plan would bring together a clear majority of voters. I think the ambiguity of the Democratic leadership, frankly, reflects the ambiguity of voters right now. The majority now know in their gut they've been lied to in the run up to war and that the Bush administration has mangled its execution. But I also think that the majority, in their gut, want a pull-out but have no idea how or when to do it. In their gut, they have come to believe those who are certain a premature pull-out be a repeat of Beirut and Mogadishu.
So I'm not sure Democrats have a lot of options here, and I'm not sure what it buys them in presenting a "plan" they have no means to execute with the Cheney administration still in power for another two and a half years.
I ask this not to be snarky...or at least with slightly less snark than is customary: Is there a plan out there that takes in the reality of the situation in Iraq (on the verge of civil war) and Washington (the Cheney administration in charge) and proposes a legitimate plan for ending the occupation? I haven't seen anything better yet than the idea of just giving every Iraqi citizen freedom and a puppy.
posted by John at 12:39 PM
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