The Democrats should have picked Howard Dean, or at least John
Edwards, if they wanted to beat President Bush. In making Kerry
their standard-bearer in the presidential race, Democrats have
repeated their mistake from 2002 — failing to offer clear
alternatives to the Republican Party’s stances on key issues. They
have misplayed their hand, discarding the aces for a pair of twos,
and as such are in the wretched position of waking up each morning
praying for bad news. For Bush to lose in November, Democrats need
either Vietnam in 1968, or the economy in 1980. In other words,
Bush will win unless things are terrible.
The Democrats’ error can be traced back to the first moments
after the 2002 elections, when the party, under Terry McAuliffe’s
leadership, made history by losing seats in the House and losing
control of the Senate during the first mid-term election of a
sitting GOP President. Democrats that year offered no real
alternative plans to Republican governance. They complained plenty
about the GOP, pointed to Enron and unemployment, and cried about
tax cuts for the rich. But voters on Election Day had no reason to
suspect Democrats would make things any better.
Right after the election Rep. Ken Bentsen (D-Tex.), who lost his
Senate primary earlier that year, told a reporter, “The Democrats
tried the Neville Chamberlain approach and it was a disaster.” To
change course, the Democrats did not, however, draft up bold policy
proposals that they could tout come election time. No, they elected
San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi as their new House leader. In the 18
months since their loss, the Democrats haven’t gotten more
progressive or more cutting-edge; rather, they’ve become more
shrill.
KERRY MAKES AN ODD choice for a party trying to beat the President
on the issue of the war because, frankly, it appears that Bush took
all of Kerry’s advice on the subject. David Freddoso laid this out
well in Human Events a few months back with an online
piece headlined “John Kerry, Bush’s Advisor On Iraq.” Kerry’s
September 6, 2002 New York Times op-ed is full of
prescriptions that either immediately inspired the Bush
Administration or were stolen from White House strategy memos.
The highlights: “If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the
international community’s already existing order, then he will have
invited enforcement.” And: “even if that enforcement is mostly at
the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the
Security Council fails to act.” The path Bush followed to war may
have been a flawed one, but it’s hard to go on the attack when your
nominee advocated exactly that path.
Still, the Democrats attack. They rile up the base and generate
visceral hatred towards this President, although it is unclear what
they would do differently. Did Bush lie us into war? Well, then, so
did Kerry, who in 1998 said, “Saddam Hussein is pursuing a program
to build weapons of mass destruction.” Edwards and Dean both railed
against the war. Both men offered distinct foreign policies from
Bush’s. Either of them, right now, would be able to say with
credibility, “this war was a mistake, and George W. Bush is to
blame.” Kerry can’t credibly do that.
To win on the war issue, Kerry is forced to lie, flip-flop, or
make the following argument: “I would have done the same thing as
Bush, I just would have done it right.” For that line to gain
traction, voters need to believe Bush is incompetent, and that
would require things being much worse than they are today.
Likewise, gas prices could be an Achilles Heel for Bush, if only
Kerry were not the nominee. High prices at the pump are the
intersection of the economy and the war. But Kerry (a) had the same
Iraq policy, (b) opposes domestic oil drilling and (c) opposes
windmills when they harm his view from Martha’s Vineyard.
The economy issue presents more of the same. People feel uneasy
about the nation’s financial health, but how does Kerry differ from
Bush? He would raise taxes, but only a little, and only on the very
rich. How taxing the rich will make us all richer still needs to be
explained.
AT THIS POINT, DEMOCRATS are like very bad contestants on “The
Price is Right.” If President Bush has bid $500, the Democrats have
responded by bidding $499. Bush could be way off target on Iraq and
the economy, but Kerry has saddled up so close, in everything but
his rhetoric, that he is in no position to capitalize. The party
seems to think its problem in 2002 was that Democrats were not
nasty enough. Instead of replacing Chamberlain with Churchill,
they’ve replaced him with James Carville.
