But the years since the end of the Clinton Administration have seen the Democrats make dumb move after dumb move. Most of the leadership in the Democratic party has not been trained in the school of hard knocks. They are acting and reacting based on emotion and their own views. Politics is the art of selling a majority in the correctness of a political view. A successful political view must convince at least half the voters to the correctness of that view. A successful politician knows that voters are motivated by solutions not criticism. When policies fail, the voters will criticize.. there is no need for the opposing party to criticize. What opponents must always do is offer a solution. If the other party offers a solution, it is impossible to win with criticism alone.
President Dubya has always offered a plan of action to fix every problem we face. That leaves the democrats with two courses of action with a chance of success. They can offer an alternative solution and demand its enactment. They can oppose the presidents plan as flawed, while touting their plan as the only one that will work. The other strategy is to give the president what he wants, and then constantly scream that his plan has failed. Since economic plans take more than a year to work, the give him what he wants and claim failure is a good plan for Democrats.
Surprisingly they did just that in Gulf War II. The voted to let Dubya pursue the war, then claimed that it failed. They were hoping for quagmire. But unfortunately for the Democrats the war plan was a huge success.
On the domestic front the Democrats are offering strong opposition to the president's plan while offering no plan of their own. The problem for democrats is some of the Bush plan will be enacted. If it works, then the president will get the credit. The president can then claim it would have worked better if he had gotten it all. If the partial Bush plan fails, the president can make the case that his plan would have worked if it had been enacted in full.
The current domestic situation is a win-win situation for Dubya. If the economy recovers, Bush will get the credit and if it does not the Democrats will get the blame.
The Democrats are following a very dumb course of action. The problem for Democrats is that if they did propose an economic plan with a chance of success, Dubya would adopt it... and likely get credit for it. The Daschles know that if the Bush plan is enacted, it would fix the economy. The democrats can't even agree on a plan, so they are left with criticism as their only tool. Criticims as a party tactic has never worked. Look at the last Governors race in California. Criticism could not even defeat Gray Davis and the Democrats think it will defeat President Bush.
It appears to me that the Democrats are in a similar situation to the Saddam situation of a few weeks ago. So they are making the best of bad choices. The Bush administration has taken the initiative on nearly every issue. The Democrats have been on Defense since 2000. The Democrats have no offense and the defense is poor.
The Democrats need a new team leader. They have forgotten how to win. Their memory is even faulty on what causes defeat.
Criticims as a party tactic has never worked. Look at the last Governors race in California. Criticism could not even defeat Gray Davis and the Democrats think it will defeat President Bush.Amen.
While Bob Dole didn't, the Republican party ran on cricitism of Clinton in '96, and again in '98. Bush/Rove made sure this mistake was not repeated. Back then, I was incensed by the comment of my best friend, an important political type. He told me that he was hoping for Dole to lose so that we'd win in '00. And this while his father was on the platform committee of '96. He was right. Dole offered no solutions. My friend knew that there was nothing we could offer back in '96 that would resonate, and that we'd have far more to offer in '00. I have to say it takes guts to have made that assessment back then. I still don't like it, but he was right.
To my view, CT, politics are 95% situation and 5% position. And that 5% is the key -- the difference between 46% and 51% of the vote. The principled stand must always accompany the political opportunity. And vice versa.
Thanks for your thoughts, as always.