Obstructionist Democrats

By PoliPundit ~ January 29th, 2005 @ 11:32 am

The talk among congressional Democrats is about the tactics Newt Gingrich used as House minority whip in 1993 and 1994. As they remember it, Gingrich opposed, blocked, attacked, zinged, or at least criticized everything President Clinton and Democratic leaders proposed. It was a scorched-earth approach, Democrats believe. And it worked, crippling Clinton and resulting in the 1994 election that gave Republicans control–lasting control, it turned out–of the House and Senate. Now Democrats, after losing three straight elections, hope brutal tactics will work for them.

…

Listen to Howard Dean, who’s favored to become the next Democratic national chairman. Asked in an un-aired interview with Fox News to list his supporters for chairman, Dean said: “It’s not likely I’m gonna make an announcement like that on Fox . . . because Fox is the propaganda outlet of the Republican party . . . . I have to weigh the legitimacy that it gives you.”

Dean is delusional. He and other Democrats cannot confer or deny legitimacy. Nor do they really understand the lessons of the Gingrich era. True, Newt used rough tactics to tear down Democratic proposals and challenge Democratic leaders. He was relentless. But he was also an idea factory of conservative concepts and initiatives. His goal was to attract conservative voters who weren’t Republicans. And he succeeded.

The 1994 breakthrough “was the culmination of a long process in which voters’ ideology finally got in line with their partisanship,” columnist David Brooks explained recently in the New York Times. “The Democrats today . . . have all the liberals. What they lack is support from middle-class white families in fast-growing suburbs. But by copying the Gingrich tactics–or what they think of as Gingrich tactics–of hyperpartisanship and ruthless oppositionalism, they will only alienate those voters even more.”

Brooks is correct. Democrats misunderstand their situation. Their view is that Republicans have been mean and bruising while they’ve been too nice and forgiving. That’s right. They think former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who was plainly obsessed with obstructing Bush at every turn, was too kindly. The lesson of the 2004 election for Democrats, then, is that they need to play rough. The real lesson, of course, is that blatant obstructionism is a failed strategy. It’s what caused Daschle to lose his seat.

This “obstructionism” isn’t just a political tactic. It’s hatred and rage. The precedents being broken are important and long-standing:

One Democrat senator and 31 Democrat House members voted to decertify Ohio’s electoral vote and disenfranchise 62 million Bush voters. Nothing like this has happened in over 100 years.
Condi Rice received more Nay votes than any Secretary of State since 1825.
Democrats are filibustering judicial nominees. Never before has a minority of senators blocked the appointment of judicial nominees. Republicans, by contrast, helped confirm ultra-liberal Ruth Bader Ginsbug and Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court by overwhelming margins.

This is all in addition to the routine vitriol that pours forth from nationally prominent Democrats.

Their presidential candidate – John Kerry – called Republicans “lying” and “crooked” on the campaign trail.
Another former presidential candidate – Al Gore – accused President Bush of “betraying this country.”
Another former presidential candidate – Ted Kennedy – literally betrayed this country on Thursday by giving a speech that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi could have written for him.
Another presidential candidate – Weasel Clark – stood by while Michael Moore called President Bush a “deserter” at a campaign rally.
Another presidential candidate – Senator Bob Graham – said on the campaign trail that the president’s Iraq policy was “anti-patriotic at the core.”
Another presidential candidate – Howard Dean – said on the campaign trail that Attorney General John Ashcroft was “not a patriot.” Dean is now the front-runner to head his so-called party.
And Terry McAuliffe, the current Chairman of his so-called party, called President Bush “AWOL” on national TV. This is the same Terry McAuliffe whose paranoid fantasies led him to blame Ra^therGate on Karl Rove.

We will not forgive. We will not forget.