Tuesday, December 09, 2003
. . And Who Might Stop Him
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, December 9, 2003; Page A27
Democrats these days resemble a group of friends standing in the middle of a railroad track and watching as a giant locomotive bears down on them. The train is still far enough away so they have time to move aside. But the friends just stand there, locked in an argument over whether they should jump to the left or the right.
The danger all Democrats anticipate is the Republican Party's genius at using what have come to be called "wedge issues" to win over voters who lean Democratic on matters of economics and social justice but not on questions related to culture, religion or the meaning of patriotism.
This weekend, many of the Democratic presidential candidates chose to offer a crash course in Wedge Politics 101. The professors were not of one mind.
Howard Dean's bluntness hasn't failed him yet. His latest coup was word yesterday that Al Gore will endorse him. Dean was characteristically blunt this weekend: "Why can't we talk about jobs, health care and education," Dean said on "Fox News Sunday," "which is what we all have in common, instead of allowing the Republicans to consistently divide us by talking about guns, God, gays, abortion and all this controversial social stuff that we're not going to come to an agreement on?"
For Democrats, it's a nice idea. The problem is that President Bush and his party won't just sit there and let his opponents run on issues of their own choosing. In 2002 Bush injected the war on terrorism, the debate over Iraq and the battle over homeland security into one election contest after another. Democrats could not snap their fingers and force the voters to care only about economics and health care.
Sen. John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, and retired Gen. Wesley Clark believe their own biographies are the answer to the most powerful Republican wedge of the moment: patriotism. At the Florida Democratic Convention last weekend, Clark gave a spirited preview of how he would turn red, white and blue into Democratic colors. Clutching an American flag posted next to him on the platform, Clark declared: "We'll never let George W. Bush or Tom DeLay or John Ashcroft tell us we don't have this flag. It belongs to us."
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina proposes to beat back one set of wedge issues rooted in culture with a battery of Democratic wedges rooted in economic class. As a son of the South born to humble circumstances, Edwards argues that his voice is far more authentic than Bush's in speaking for NASCAR dads, country-and-western moms and the slew of other groups the political class is inventing to label culturally conservative middle-class voters. Edwards's detailed program is designed to make a moral issue out of what he calls the president's preference for "wealth" over "work." And Edwards keeps taking regionalist shots at Dean -- Edwards did it again on Sunday -- for proposing to "tell Southerners what they should believe."
The fact that Democrats are arguing about the perils of wedge politics suggests an important turn in this presidential contest. Now that Dean is established as the party's front-runner, the debate among rank-and-file Democrats as well as Democratic elites is over whether Dean himself will be a walking wedge issue for Bush. Will he be easily parodied as an antiwar New England liberal (even though Dean is a centrist on many issues) who avoided service in Vietnam and is out of touch with God-fearing, cultural conservatives, despite his opposition to gun control?
That Dean has begun to address the issue directly suggests that his finely tuned political antennae are sending him a warning. But Dean's critics in the party have reason to fear that because no single rival has caught on as an alternative, Dean may sweep past a split field by winning small plurality victories in the Southern primaries that begin after voting in Iowa and New Hampshire. Gore's endorsement strengthens the chances that Dean will pull off a Southern coup similar to Gov. Michael Dukakis's showing in the 1988 primaries. Against three rivals from Southern and border states (one of them was Gore), the Massachusetts governor did just well enough in the South to secure the nomination.
And even if Rep. Richard Gephardt slows down the Dean machine by beating Dean in Iowa, Gephardt's continued viability could further slow the emergence of a single anti-Dean alternative.
And so the war over wedges is really two contests: Dean against the field to prove that he would not be God's gift to Bush political maestro Karl Rove; and the battle among Dean's rivals to emerge quickly as the alternative who can answer both Rove's wedges and Dean's passionate Web-heads, contributors and organizers.
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, December 9, 2003; Page A27
Democrats these days resemble a group of friends standing in the middle of a railroad track and watching as a giant locomotive bears down on them. The train is still far enough away so they have time to move aside. But the friends just stand there, locked in an argument over whether they should jump to the left or the right.
The danger all Democrats anticipate is the Republican Party's genius at using what have come to be called "wedge issues" to win over voters who lean Democratic on matters of economics and social justice but not on questions related to culture, religion or the meaning of patriotism.
This weekend, many of the Democratic presidential candidates chose to offer a crash course in Wedge Politics 101. The professors were not of one mind.
Howard Dean's bluntness hasn't failed him yet. His latest coup was word yesterday that Al Gore will endorse him. Dean was characteristically blunt this weekend: "Why can't we talk about jobs, health care and education," Dean said on "Fox News Sunday," "which is what we all have in common, instead of allowing the Republicans to consistently divide us by talking about guns, God, gays, abortion and all this controversial social stuff that we're not going to come to an agreement on?"
For Democrats, it's a nice idea. The problem is that President Bush and his party won't just sit there and let his opponents run on issues of their own choosing. In 2002 Bush injected the war on terrorism, the debate over Iraq and the battle over homeland security into one election contest after another. Democrats could not snap their fingers and force the voters to care only about economics and health care.
Sen. John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, and retired Gen. Wesley Clark believe their own biographies are the answer to the most powerful Republican wedge of the moment: patriotism. At the Florida Democratic Convention last weekend, Clark gave a spirited preview of how he would turn red, white and blue into Democratic colors. Clutching an American flag posted next to him on the platform, Clark declared: "We'll never let George W. Bush or Tom DeLay or John Ashcroft tell us we don't have this flag. It belongs to us."
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina proposes to beat back one set of wedge issues rooted in culture with a battery of Democratic wedges rooted in economic class. As a son of the South born to humble circumstances, Edwards argues that his voice is far more authentic than Bush's in speaking for NASCAR dads, country-and-western moms and the slew of other groups the political class is inventing to label culturally conservative middle-class voters. Edwards's detailed program is designed to make a moral issue out of what he calls the president's preference for "wealth" over "work." And Edwards keeps taking regionalist shots at Dean -- Edwards did it again on Sunday -- for proposing to "tell Southerners what they should believe."
The fact that Democrats are arguing about the perils of wedge politics suggests an important turn in this presidential contest. Now that Dean is established as the party's front-runner, the debate among rank-and-file Democrats as well as Democratic elites is over whether Dean himself will be a walking wedge issue for Bush. Will he be easily parodied as an antiwar New England liberal (even though Dean is a centrist on many issues) who avoided service in Vietnam and is out of touch with God-fearing, cultural conservatives, despite his opposition to gun control?
That Dean has begun to address the issue directly suggests that his finely tuned political antennae are sending him a warning. But Dean's critics in the party have reason to fear that because no single rival has caught on as an alternative, Dean may sweep past a split field by winning small plurality victories in the Southern primaries that begin after voting in Iowa and New Hampshire. Gore's endorsement strengthens the chances that Dean will pull off a Southern coup similar to Gov. Michael Dukakis's showing in the 1988 primaries. Against three rivals from Southern and border states (one of them was Gore), the Massachusetts governor did just well enough in the South to secure the nomination.
And even if Rep. Richard Gephardt slows down the Dean machine by beating Dean in Iowa, Gephardt's continued viability could further slow the emergence of a single anti-Dean alternative.
And so the war over wedges is really two contests: Dean against the field to prove that he would not be God's gift to Bush political maestro Karl Rove; and the battle among Dean's rivals to emerge quickly as the alternative who can answer both Rove's wedges and Dean's passionate Web-heads, contributors and organizers.
Comments:
Post a Comment
