The Plague, by Albert Camus. Remember
that book? It is a gritty rendition of the last major outbreak of
bubonic plague, which took place in Algeria in the early 1950s. I
read it as a teenager and remember no details, only the mood,
heavy but hurtling forward, like a boulder in an avalanche. I
particularly recall learning here the word “recrudescence.” Now,
an insight I once experienced concerning that book helps me to
understand the turnabout in Democrat fortunes.
The facts themselves are startling. The party enjoys
dominant leads in both the House of Representatives and the
Senate of the United States. The Presidency went Democrat as
well, canceling most of the checks and wiping out most of the
balances. The powers that had become went ahead and pushed
through a vague bill doing something vague to the health-care
system which in some vague way will insure everyone in the
country, vaguely cutting costs and vaguely helping the deficit
long-term. The powerful head of the Congressional Appropriations
Committee, long-time Wisconsin Representative David Obey swung
the gavel to announce passage. He used the same gavel that had
banged Medicare into existence. He capped that triumphant moment
a month later by announcing he would not run for reelection.
Huh?
More examples of such events occur each day. Last week a
14-term Democrat Congressman from West Virginia lost a primary to
an opponent who stressed his opposition to the health-care bill.
Powerful Senators Dodd and Dorgan are not risking their egos in
bruising contests and Bayh has taken a bye on his run as well.
The Republicans are ahead 7 points in the general polling
preference for which party should control Congress.
It is easy for conservatives to say they told you so, so
they do, because they did. But in truth the answer is not as
simple as they think: the public opposed the bill, the
politicians passed the bill, the public will make them pay. In
real political terms, things do not generally work out that
way.
Bill Clinton, who knows a thing or two about politics,
actually was right when he told the Democrats the health-care
bill should help them. The logic goes like this. 1) Midterm
elections have low turnout. 2) The base of the party in power is
generally disappointed by the gap between the promise of victory
and the reality of governance. 3) The base of the party out of
power is hungry, and angry. 4) Consequently, the out-of-power
party gets higher turnout and wins back seats. 5) The only
solution is to excite the base of the party in power by giving
them a long-sought legislative achievement. 6) With two energized
bases squaring off, and independents sleeping through the
midterms, the elections can be fought to a draw and the party in
power buys a solid year-and-a-half of total domination until the
next Presidential election heats up.
So where has the Clinton formula gone wrong? It is not that
the doctrinaire Democrat base is insufficiently jubilant over the
health-care victory. It is because of the independents. The
independents have suddenly arisen like the zombies in a horror
movie and are throwing their votes to Republicans in
unprecedented quantities. You see 70 to 30 leads for Republicans
among independents in states like Massachusetts, an eventuality
no political consultant could possibly have anticipated.
I think the answer is that the press overplayed its hand.
It has thoroughly abdicated its role in questioning government
when Democrats are in office. The same press crew that challenged
Bush on the economy when there was 4.6% unemployment now reports
as wonderful the fact that unemployment when up from 9.7 to 9.9
in April. This proves more people are optimistic enough about the
future to re-enter the job market! Imagine if we hit 11 or 12, we
will have to send a ticker-tape parade down Wall Street.
This tells the independent voter there is no longer a
contest between Democrat and Republican. There is a contest
between charismatic leaders surrounded by naïve sycophants versus
practical leaders surrounded by skeptical interrogators. The
independent has to vote Republican not because he buys the
ideology but merely because he thinks it healthy to have a guy
who is challenged rather than venerated.
This is like the realization I had with The
Plague. After I had been assigned it in a college literature
course I had a friend who had to read it for medical school. It
suddenly hit me: we are reading two separate books. I am reading
a work of literature and he is reading a work of medicine. We
have gotten to that point with the Presidency. It is no longer
one job. There are two distinct jobs of Democrat President and
Republican President. One walks into the press room to meet the
lemmings while the other must face the jackals.
