Since the last election, I've been trying to compose an essay about the new political situation and where the Democrats should be going to crack the iron hand of Republicans on the levers of power. While struggling with this, I tried looking back at articles and postings I made that touch on political questions, and I discovered (to my endless glee) that I already wrote this essay after the Democrats' debacle in 2002. Thus, to save myself the time, I'm going to repost that essay. I can't find a thing in it I was wrong on, but it is interesting there was much less of a secular vs. religious overtone among the punditocracy to that election only two years ago. I am quite smug now in recalling I identified Social Security privatization and the demotion of Trent Lott as winning issues two years ago.

< begin repost >

So What Comes After This?

The Democratic Party has been handed its most shocking defeat since Eisenhower. In 1994 they at least still had the White House. Now, they have nothing.

Our adversarial political system was not designed for one party rule, and most Americans find the idea somewhat threatening. Opposing parties tend to dampen each other's intemperate impulses.

What will the Democrats do to get back in the game? From the news, it looks like they are going to rush back to their base: civil service unions, identity politics grudge groups, leftist-socialist money grubbing statists, watermelon environmentalists. They've got one of the most extreme members running strong for Minority Leader in Nancy Pelosi.

I think this is a disaster. Retreating to the worst, most divisive elements of their base will alienate even more of the broad center of American voters. Instead of losing 53-47, they'll lose 60-40 or 65-35. They will consign themselves to the margins for a decade or more.

The Democrats need to remember how Clinton changed the rules of the game. He took portions of the opposition's game plan and made it his own, leaving the Republicans with nothing but polarizing cultural issues that generally run against them. Look at what the Republicans campaigned on (not an exhaustive list, and very generalized):


1. America-first foreign policy.
2. A more robust and flexible military.
3. A national security strategy that takes the battle to the enemy.
4. Gun rights.
5. Lower taxes.
6. Less government regulation of economic activity.
7. School choice.
8. Private Social Security accounts.
9. More government regulation of abortion.
10. School prayer.


Clearly parts of this agenda appeal to American voters; We just found that out in very clear terms. Which parts can the Democrats appropriate for themselves, and which should they leave the Republicans with?

I'll freely admit that I'm a libertarian, so I'm sure much of this is wishful thinking, but here is my prescription for remaking the Democratic party into a viable competitor for leadership in this country.

On foreign policy, military spending, and national security they should say "me too" with one addendum. They should campaign against waste and fraud in procurement, which is rampant. I know this for a fact, I've seen the way the military develops and purchases products, and it's vastly more expensive than it need be. It isn't bashing business if you can point out overcharges by Lockheed Martin or GE, it's fiscal responsibility.

Gun control is never going to be a winner for the Democrats. They should embrace liberty and throw Sarah Brady out the window. Let the gun grabbers agitate for a gun ban in their localities, but keep them off of your national stage. They're electoral poison.

Business regulation is a tougher issue for the Democrats. Some degree of regulation is a necessary evil, but the current systems are ludicrous. The bureaucrats regulating pollution standards, resource extraction, and the like are far too cozy with the industries they are supposed to be watching. Chuck the current top-down system altogether. It's time for cost-benefit based regulation and enforcement based on outcomes, not on adherence to arcane footnotes to the Federal Register.

School choice and private Social Security accounts are electoral winners for a very simple reason: they devolve power from the government to the people. We've had decades of government schools and government management of Social Security, and the government is rotten at both. The teachers' unions run the schools for the benefit of their members rather than the students. Social Security is nothing but a giant congressional slush fund. Statist solutions such as "more money for schools" will not work, and most people know it. It's time to try something new. Pick the winner and run with it, Democrats.

What does that leave to differentiate the two parties? Social issues. Abortion, school prayer, gay marriage, and all the rest. And on those issues, a huge number of people (including me) hold their noses when it comes to the Republicans.

Keep abortion legal, but don't promote it as some great and glorious thing. It's not, it's horrible. The only thing is, outlawing it would be worse. Even letting Roe v. Wade crash and burn wouldn't be a bad thing. It would simply allow the issue to be decided by the states and individuals, where it belongs.

School prayer becomes a non-issue if you back vouchers. Parents will have the freedom to pick the school, so this issue dies. That's a good thing, because a large number of Americans support the "moment of silence" thing. This negates the one social issue the Rebublicans have that polls well.

Gay marriage is a plus, if it's presented correctly. What is marriage, but the union of a man and a woman. The real issue is not marriage itself, but the legal and social treatment of the married man and woman. Gays need the same rights and guarantees that we straights enjoy, and phrased in that manner it would be a winner at the polls. Don't present it as a threat to marriage, but as a civil rights issue.

I realize that taking these stances will alienate a large amount of the current base of the Democratic Party, but is that base something they really want to keep, anyway? As long as they are fundamentally dependant on extremists who repulse the center of the American polity, they're going to lose. Al Sharpton, Ralph Neas, Kate Michelman, and all of the rest of the statist leftist radicals can go vote for the Green Party or the American Socialist Party.

They'll pick up far more than they lose, and they'll have taken them from the Republican column. Even more importantly, the Democratic party might begin to return to its origins, when it really cared a bout liberty and freedom. Like it was before it got hijacked by the various venomous factions that currently run it.

Do I expect any of this to happen? Hell no, not with the current leadership of McAuliffe and Clinton. But it is nice to imagine alternatives to that plastic-haired moron, Trent Lott.

< end of reposting >

I thing that analysis stands up very damned well, and I hope Democrat primary voters might read it between now and 2008. None of what I suggested actually happened except the unmourned demise of Trent Lott, and the Dems lost even worse than they did in 2002.

I only wish I had included Michael Moore and Jimmy Carter in that list of notables who deserved repudiation.