To Stay Relevant Dems Must Stop Aping G.O.P Policy Moves
By Peter Douglas
Opinions Writer

For people who care, Election Day is a lot like Christmas Eve. As it approaches, you begin to think about it more and more, the excitement building with each Christmas tree or campaign ad you see. The night after the election, you watch the exit polls, just as you shake all the presents under the tree, trying to get a glimpse of what the morning will bring. In the end though, you have to go to bed, restless with anticipation and hoping the vox populi will bring you some goodies. As you drift to sleep, visions of corporate reform and environmental protection float through your head—if you’re a liberal like me.

The results of this election, however, were as if Santa Claus left me a fat sack of coal and some switches, and then came in my room and kicked me in the head just for good measure. I was hoping to wake up to news of a Democratic House and Senate and the promise of forcing President Bush to back down from his frightening foreign and domestic policies. Instead, I saw disappointing, but not really surprising, headlines, reporting that the Democrats had lost the Senate and failed to win the House. Now the Republicans basically control all three branches of the federal government, and are free to pursue their agenda of cutting taxes for all things rich and corporate, tearing up the country in search of fossil fuels, and preemptively attacking Iraq and any other country that they don’t like (provided the abundance, in those countries, of fossil fuels). The results are in, there will be no recount, and we’re all going to have to live with it. Be that as it may; to prevent similar results in the next election requires that we act now.

Like the Stags after homecoming, Democratic leaders need to go back to the locker room and examine their embarrassing loss. The Democratic Party is currently undergoing an identity crisis. It all began when Bill Clinton came into office as a “New Democrat,” with a fresh political style and centrist ideas. Shaking off tired Democratic ideologies and dogma may have been a good thing, but on many issues ranging from welfare reform to free trade, “New Democrat” began to sound more and more like “Republican Lite.” This was especially true in last week’s election, when many Democratic candidates were too busy proclaiming how much they supported Bush on Iraq and homeland security to talk about any issues they could win on. Meanwhile, Bush wasn’t being nearly as courteous, campaigning hard for fellow Republicans and telling voters he needed some “allies” in Congress. If Democrats are telling voters how great Bush is, and Bush is telling voters how awful Democrats are, then it makes a lot of sense that people wouldn’t vote for Democrats.

If they want to remain a relevant party, the Democrats need to stop trying to co-opt the Republicans’ popularity. Instead they should look within, at what makes their party unique, at what it means to be a Democrat, at why people vote for them. They’ll find it isn’t because they voted for war in Iraq and are “behind Bush all the way.” People vote Democratic because they know, or at least hope, that Democrats will fight for the working class, organized labor, racial equality, peaceful foreign policy, and the environment. These are issues that can muster an outpouring of public support. When drilling was proposed for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge last spring, Washington was flooded with letters and phone calls expressing opposition. Yet it was never mentioned in the recent campaigns that, under a Republican Congress, the Refuge is almost certain to be opened to drilling. In the past few years, there have been numerous rallies and marches protesting the actions of the World Trade Organization, and more recently the proposed war on Iraq, but the majority of Democrats in Congress have voted in favor of unlimited free trade and authorization for Bush to attack Iraq. Democrats need to wake up and recognize their constituency, to realize that if they ignore it for too long they will lose it, to the Greens or some other party, or just to apathy.

One common complaint about the Democratic Party is that it has become corporate-controlled, turned into a tool of the big-money donors who support it. If they truly want to change their situation, the Democrats should take a firm stand on campaign finance reform, not by supporting weak legislation while continuing to stuff their pockets, but by setting an example and significantly reducing the amount of money they accept. This may seem like suicide at a time when political power is measured in dollars, but Democrats are already losing the race for money by a long shot. President Bush has already raised more than five-hundred million dollars for his re-election campaign; no Democratic candidate is anywhere near that mark. Democrats can either keep playing the politics-equals-money game and losing, or they can challenge the idea that a candidate can buy an election, and maybe win. Instead of focusing on big corporate donors, Democrats could return to a more traditional means of gaining political power: grassroots organizing. I don’t know the numbers, but I think its safe to assume that there are many more idealistic people willing to work hard to get out the vote for the Democrats than for the Republicans. If efforts are focused on going door to door and actually talking to people, as opposed to working through slick, mindless television commercials, the public might get the idea that politicians actually care about them and take more interest in voting. It would be difficult for the Democratic Party to wean itself from big money at this point, but that’s just the change it needs to make itself vibrant again.

The prospect of two years of a Republican-controlled Congress is scary, but it’s also energizing. It means that those of us who are liberals will have to yell that much louder, march that much more often, and write that many more letters, in order to make sure our voices are heard in Washington. It means that Democrats, now in the minority, will have to fight extra hard to prevent Bush and his “allies” from having too drastic an effect on the nation. Or they can passively support anything Bush proposes, hoping not too make anyone that might vote for them too angry. It’s a choice that will determine the future of the Democratic party.