WASHINGTON — As retired General and presidential hopeful Wesley
Clark furiously builds a time machine to send Howard Dean back to
challenge George McGovern from the left for the 1972 Democratic
nomination, is it any wonder a good Southern Democrat like Senator
Zell Miller is up in arms over the current state of affairs?
Miller’s latest, A National Party No More: The Conscience of
a Conservative Democrat (Stroud & Hall, 237 pages, $26),
is likely the only book on conservative top 10 lists this year that
praises (with reservations) Robert Byrd, Diane Feinstein, and
Hillary Clinton. Glance at the book’s jacket and you’ll see
laudatory blurbs from Sean Hannity, Robert Novak, Jack Kemp, and
Newt Gingrich.
The reciprocity is real but limited. Miller endorses
“traditional families,” “hard work,” “self-reliance” and the
stigmatizing and punishing of “destructive behavior,” and commends
conservatives for sticking up for these values. But he says, unlike
conservatives, more liberal-minded people want to help those down
on their luck, foster equal opportunity, and provide “broad access
to housing, education, and health care.” And again, he breaks with
“many of my conservative friends” over whether federal funds should
go to funding art classes in schools. The rest of the book more or
less follows the same script: Liberals are caring and nurturing to
a fault, while conservatives are the stern enforcers of necessary
unpleasantries of life.
So why is Jack Kemp happily touting this book as a “wake-up call
for the Democratic Party”? What has prompted Robert Novak to
proclaim that Democrats “would be well advised” to accept Miller’s
“sincere advice”?
Obviously, Miller has found many fans in GOP circles for his
willingness to co-sponsor legislation endorsed by President Bush,
most notably the 2001 tax cut package. His reaction to the
September 11 attacks also endeared him to the more hawkish
elements. “I say, bomb the hell out of them,” Miller said on the
Senate floor a day after the attacks. “If there’s collateral
damage, so be it. They certainly found our civilians to be
expendable.” This is hardly the
apologize-to-the-world-and-we’ll-have-peace approach many Democrats
have adopted in the War on Terror.
But the current embrace of Miller has little to do with any
selfless concern on the part of conservatives. Does anyone believe
Newt Gingrich and Sean Hannity are hoping the Democrats will reform
themselves, so that they can take back Congress? Call me a cynic,
but I think most conservatives hope Miller’s book is a eulogy,
rather than a real call for a Democratic renaissance.
Not that Miller has done much to discourage that interpretation.
A man who, in a keynote speech at the 1992 Democratic National
Convention, called Bill Clinton “the only candidate for president
who feels our pain, shares our hopes,” is now an avowed supporter
of George W. Bush. He calls the contenders for his Party’s
nomination the “nine dwarves” and points out that no national
Democratic figure can campaign for candidates in the South without
hurting them.
The target audience for A National Party No More is a
Republican establishment so buoyed by recent victories they want to
believe the entire world has been converted. And it is fun
to gloat. But if there is anything that can undo these gains it
will be a sense in the public that conservatives believe their
victory to be a matter of inevitability.
