Posted on 06/14/2003 10:53:33 PM PDT by LdSentinal
WASHINGTON -- Looking back on the wreckage of 10 years of lost elections, Democrats in Congress know it's broke. The question is how to fix it.
As they look to next year's House races, various Democratic factions -- the moderate Blue Dogs, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific-American Caucus -- are joining to tackle such issues as President Bush's tax cut and changing priorities in the federal budget.
"We're much more unified than we were in the past," said Rep. Robert Matsui (D-Calif.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a fund-raising organization.
Matsui says Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who is House minority leader, is pulling the party together by taking steps such as appointing Rep. John Spratt, a South Carolina conservative Democrat, as ranking member on the House Budget Committee. Matsui also credits the aggressive style of Steny Hoyer, the Democratic House whip from Maryland.
"I think we just needed a breath of fresh air, new leadership, and it's gotten the caucus to get in concert with one another," Matsui said.
Pelosi, in an interview, said the Republicans have actually helped her party find focus.
"One hundred percent of the Democrats voted against the Bush budget -- 100 percent," she said. "Almost 100 percent voted against the Bush tax cut. Our coming together is around issues, and the Republican proposals have been so outrageous that they've helped unify us, quite frankly."
The Democrats, who stretch in philosophy from conservative to liberal, also are trying to focus on their similarities, not differences, said Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), a founder of the Blue Dog Coalition.
"One of the things I think the Blue Dogs have been able to do is convince the Democratic leadership here that some of these divisive issues don't need to be on center stage," Tanner said. "We ought to let some of the emotional hot-button issues that we just don't agree on -- whether it be guns or abortion -- let that go to the members' individual districts and consciences."
Adding impetus to the drive for party unity is that next year will mark a decade since the GOP took control of the House from the Democrats, who had controlled it for nearly 40 years. Republicans have also controlled the Senate for most of the past 10 years.
In every election year since the 1994 "Republican revolution," Democrats have vowed to take over the Congress and have failed. Last November's election, in which Republicans kept control of the House and governorships and grabbed back the Senate, was the final jolt for many.
"You've got to be able to ask yourself, well, should we be doing something different?" said Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Baltimore Democrat who heads the Congressional Black Caucus.
Cummings said he is painfully aware that the Republicans, seeking to capitalize on their successes, are now trying to win over undecided voters and traditionally Democratic groups.
For example, in recent weeks, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, has attended a press conference with the group raising funds to build a memorial in Washington to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Frist also used the Morehouse School of Medicine, a historically African-American school, as the setting for his introduction of a bill to address health care disparities.
Facing this kind of campaign, Democrats in the House have chosen to focus on their areas of agreement, Cummings said.
Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat who belongs to the Congressional Black Caucus and the Progressive Caucus, said Democrats need to find the issues they can all rally around.
"We have to do something to make it clear that we are different from the Republicans," said Lewis, who is senior deputy Democratic whip. "There are some people that are saying that even within the Democratic Party, we must regain our voice, our sense of passion and show that we stand for something."
Some of those issues are being provided by the Republicans as they seek to roll back housing programs, early childhood education measures and other programs that serve traditionally Democratic constituencies, said Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat who is co-chair of the Progressive Caucus and whip of the Congressional Black Caucus.
"I don't think the people in our country really understand that the Republicans in the administration and the Republicans here in this Congress are trying to take this country in one direction and stifle any type of opposition or any type of debate," Lee said.
David Bositis, a senior researcher with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank, said he believes that the Republican control in Washington has led Democrats to see that they disagree on very little when it comes to the big picture.
"In terms of anything that matters, they are all on the same page," Bositis said. "It's not like the situation during the Clinton years when you have a liberal president and debates between liberal positions. Then you could have conflicts between people in the Hispanic caucus and the black caucus, but now the alternatives are Tom DeLay and George Bush."
As for some Democrats' grand visions of winning back the majority in the Congress, Tanner, the Blue Dog, said he takes a much more sober view and believes that the center of the new Democratic model has to be fiscal responsibility. As campaigns become more media driven, he said, the party that has the most money to pay for TV advertising will always have the edge.
"Democrats will seldom, if ever, have as much money as the Republicans do for electoral purposes," Tanner said.
"When you can't compete on television, which is where a lot of the retail politics takes place today, it makes it that much harder."
Rep. Charlie Stenholm, a Texas Democrat and a Blue Dog, believes the challenge to his party is to regain the trust of middle-class voters, a traditional Democratic constituency that has been moving into the Republican column.
"We take as good a care as we can of the poor, but the middle class is disillusioned with both parties, saying, 'Everything you do leaves us out,' " Stenholm said.
"That's where the challenge comes for us is to re-establish the Democratic Party as the party of the middle class."
Not likely, with the San Francisco Liberal Nancy Pelosi leading the charge!
Yeah, opposing the President on Iraq, opposing tax cuts, supporting affirmative action and gay rights will surely win back those middle-class voters. NOT! The libs are on the wrong side of every issue now.
Take political positions that get votes? Naaaah that's too simple.
This must be a "secure the base" article. Well, the filthy, maggot ridden base of the Democratic Party is secure. That's the problem. Look at their core beliefs and you see a party of left-wing radicals that no one with a shred of self-respect or love of country could possibly vote for. That may not always have been true, but it's true now.
They need to dump the Barbara Lees and Nancy Pelosis from their party and take a hard right turn. One party rule isn't good, but that's what the Democrats are giving us. Their party will never be right-wing, but a viable middle of the road Democratic party will keep the Republicans honest and be better for all concerned.
Do they really have to be advocates for gun confiscation, partial birth abortion, and pedophilia? They should abandon these hateful positions and become a party that advocates such things as sound economic policy, immigration reform, and an end to the "free trade" madness. Actually, it's the Republicans should be in favor of those policies, but if they won't the second party needs to pick up those issues and run with them, but the Democrats are fatally left-wing, I'm afraid.
Then there's the problem with the Clintons. I could go on for pages about that. Suffice it to say that the Democrats today are not a viable political party, nor should they be with some of the positions they espouse.
If I where a Democrat I would be very worried about 2004. And look who their great saviour is. Hillary Clinton. That tells you all you need to know about the Democrats.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.