11 November 2006 - 2:18pm
Now that the Democrats lead Congress, now what?
The AP raises the question on many minds:
It's the question Democrats would rather not ask in their moment of revelry: Are their new majorities in the House and Senate sustainable?
What if the war in Iraq is over by 2008? Or what if it is still being waged despite Democratic pledges to change the course? What if voter antipathy toward President Bush is irrelevant in two years? After all, he will be on his way out....
...As some Democrats begin looking to 2008 and beyond, the challenge is how to turn antipathy toward Republicans into affection for Democrats.
In other words, what will these "new" Democrats stand for? After all, a number of them believe the state should regulate women's bodies. More than a few believe homosexual Americans should be afforded fewer rights on the basis of their sexual orientation. These are issues the Republicans are almost certain to push on over the next couple of years.
What do the Democrats stand for, now that they've dropped the ERA from their platform? Senator Chuck Schumer's answer is (wait for it) a three-point plan. (It's not a real plan unless you can count off the main points on your fingers.)
It would begin with modest plans to increase the minimum wage, provide more tax breaks on college tuition, encourage greater energy independence and require drug companies to negotiate for lower Medicare drug prices.
Democrats then must work in bipartisan fashion to confront the war in Iraq and government deficits, Schumer said.
"Thirdly, we have to try our best to come up with a full vision and platform that points toward '08," he said.
It's that third point that is the biggest challenge. What will this new platform look like? Will the voters who put the Democrats into office see the Democratic Party as representing them and their interests? Or will the Democrats try to look even more Republican so they can win Republican votes?
Of course, all this begs the questions: What will the Republicans do, now that they've received such a drubbing? Some are calling for even more conservatism, more wingnuttery, to appeal to even more hard-core right-wingers. If that's the case, when it comes to hate-mongering by the right, we ain't seen nothing yet.
I would hope they would rediscover the roots they claim to have, and look more to Goldwater conservatism rather than Pinochet conservatism, and give up their dreams of establishing a religious police state. Maybe that's too much to hope for.
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Comments
Having been out of power for 12 years, the first thing the Dems will need to do is to remember what it's like to have their collective hands on the tiller, again. A few bills with some teeth and with some broad support will come first. I think the minimum wage and college tuition help fall into that category. Bush will have to veto them to defeat the bills if they pass. This will test the relationship with Congress and Bush will also test out his ability to be a President working with a legislature that might break away a bit from K-street.
Also, it will be harder for Bush, although not impossible, to write his little notes about not having to abide by these bills if he does indeed sign them. He can't exactly change the amount of the minimum wage or tell the IRS they don't have to put the deductions in the regs. He either signs or he vetoes; and if he vetoes, Congress either over-rides or fails. Yet if Bush vetoes (or pocket vetoes) or somehow balks at the minimum wage of college tuition help, we ends up on the wrong side. It's one thing for Bush to play the same-sex marriage card or the stem cell card to make Dems look like sinners in the eyes of God. It is another to hit people in their pocket books. While people can get worked up over gay people and snowflake babies, when it comes down to the fact the GOP is handing out tax breaks to the rich, but not to the middle class or minimum wage to the burgeoning underclass, Bush will be smoked out if he refuses to go along.
Surely there will be those who will be heartened by Presidential opposition to an increase in the minimum wage or help with college tuition. But a large number would not be opposed. The Dems now can use the agenda setting to bring focus on different issues. I am not optimistic that ERA will come back into the debate ... at least not quite yet ... but I think Constitutional amendment banning flag burning won't get to a vote while resolutions on stopping the war will.
The topics will different, although not entirely. I am sure there will be more bridges to nowhere and a host of other things only a US Congress could dream up. But the fact the issues will change and K-street won't be plugged in quite the same will count for something.
The House stands for re-election in two years. A third of the Senate will also stand for re-election. The election has also overturned that dictum that a party can win with its base alone.
For now the pundits are holding their collective breaths. In two months, we'll see where the nation goes and if it will start thinking about issues beyond the ones the the Christian right and K-street have been feeding the American people for far too long.
They WHAT?!!
Oh yes. Not even token support any more.