Return to normalcy in ‘08
Back in early December, following the Democratic victory in the Virginia Governor’s race, I began writing this post, in which I outlined what I felt to be a winning theme Democrats might use in 2008. I called this theme “A Return to Normalcy,” based on Warren Harding’s election-winning strategy after the trauma of World War I.
At the time I began writing it, I was not thinking of the 2006 elections, because generally I feel that mid-term elections are about local pocketbook issues, rather than national debates. Yet it seems like despite history, 2006 is indeed shaping up to be a national race.
Yesterday, Democrats unveiled their campaign for Real Security, a theme which promises to figure prominently in the upcoming election season. Republicans still feel that security is their strength, but there are some chinks in the armor. Polls suggest that fewer and fewer Americans believe the trope that violence can only be countered with violence, i.e. America is safer because we are fighting the terrorists in Iraq, rather than here at home.
Yet polls are not the sole, or even the best reason, to take a stand for more Homeland Security and less Interventionism. It’s the right stand to take, and I think Democrats finally realize that.
The first sentence in the Democratic “Real Security” plan is “The first responsibility of our government is the security of every American.” Amen. Finally, they get it. Democrats such as Garrison Keillor and Joe Lieberman have been saying as much for ages.
Inasmuch as Homeland Security is a domestic issue, this could be a potential strength for Democrats. Republicans have quite obviously shown themselves incompetent in the management of domestic security. Beginning with the Bush Administration’s decision to support and fund a Homeland Security Administration–combating a problem of bureaucracy by creating even more bureaucracy!–Republicans have demonstrated they simply are not competent to organize and oversee a massive governmental response to crisis.
The Republicans can order the Armed Forces to attack and destroy a third-rate military power like Iraq. No doubt about it. If we ever have to go to war with some other chihuahua State, say Burundi, I want the Republicans in charge. They know how to get out of the way and let the military machine steamroller a much weaker nation.
But on domestic security, they come up short. The failure of FEMA to respond adequately to a predictable natural disaster is only the highlight of a long string of failures under Republican management. Most recently, we read in the newspapers that GAO investigators were able to smuggle materials for two dirty bombs through U.S. ports. Where is the security we were promised?
Just today, I read in the Post that Washington, D.C. still has no regional, coordinated plan to organize a response to a terrorist attack. While this failure must be laid squarely at the feet of Congress, Congress is Republican controlled. Where is the security we were promised?
Republicans are already mocking the lack of specifics in the Democratic security plan, but considering how far short Republicans have fallen in keeping their promise to protect us, Democrats may not need specifics to take back the house in 2006. The American mood has shifted, and Republicans may not have it in their power to shift it back in their direction. We have been locked in a military struggle with terrorism for five years, now. Maybe it’s time to consider that this struggle cannot be won using the belligerent means that the President prefers.
Certainly the public mood seems to be in favor of a politics of reform and change on all levels. Yesterday on his program, Atlanta talk show host Neal Boortz bemoaned a recent poll that suggests Americans care more about health care reform than Terrorism. “Americans have gone to sleep,” Boortz said. Instead, maybe what Americans finally realize is that Iraq was a profound misapplication of American might and did nothing to secure us from terrorism. We were better off securing Afghanistan, where terrorists actually did live and work, and better off securing America than trying to fulfill the President’s foolishly idealistic dream of democracy in the Middle East. Maybe that’s what Americans have finally come to believe, Mr. Boortz. Admitting mistakes may not be a trademark of the President, but Americans in general are mature people who often realize they have made a stupid mistake. And then they try to correct it.
2006 may be the beginning of that correction.
If that prediction proves true, then 2008 could be the apotheosis of this turnabout.
Republicans nonetheless still hold an advantage in terms of ideas and popular candidates; however, Democrats can still win on both issues. I feel like Domestic Security ( I prefer that phrasing to “Real Security” or “Homeland Security”) can be a winner in the war of ideas.
On the issue of candidates, I feel like the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, is not the best choice. Those who voted for war in Iraq to begin with, and who later changed their minds or else have offered dissimulating excuses for their vote, are not ideal candidates. To me, consistency on Iraq is integral for a Democratic candidate in 2008. No one will vote for someone like George Romney, who supported a war only to change his mind and decide that he was fooled into supporting it.
That means Hillary Clinton should not be candidate for President in 2008; nor should John Kerry. I think the best two candidates at the moment are Russ Feingold and Mark Warner. It may go against received wisdom to support two unknowns, but politics is too beholden to media attention and the ceaseless self-promotion of time servers—senators and congressmen who serve their states merely with an eye towards the Presidency.
The Democrats would be better off reaching beyond the usual pool of Senator candidates, who never say an honest word for fear of offending someone or having their words come back to haunt them. Kerry is the worst example of how an honest man trying to be disingenuous for the sake of allaying political damage only compounds the damage done (”I voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it”).
Senators never win the Presidency anyway. Governors are always more likable and can run as outsiders. Thus of Feingold and Warner, I like Warner better. But I’m biased. I’m a Virginian.
Thus 2006 can be a test bed for a platform of Domestic Security, even if it cannot be a test bed for Presidential candidates. This is also a period of time Democrats should view as a time for revival, in the old spiritual sense of the word, a time to evaluate past mistakes honestly and make some alterations in conduct and attitude that will carry the party forward over the next decade or two.
First and foremost, if Democrats win in 2006, I think they ought to immediately begin to promote the idea of a return to normalcy in 2008. For five years, our nation has lived in a state of tension and cynicism, pressed by our own government to be fearful for our safety, then told to live our lives as normal until the next alert of a potential terrorist attack.
After the initial just and dramatic response to 9/11–the invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of Al Qaeda and the Taliban–our sons and daughters were marched off to fight a different foreign war that was initially of no vital importance to our security; a war that threatens to consume our power, our fortune, our respect in the international community, and our lives. It is time to give Iraq back to the Iraqis, to declare the military portion of the War on Terror finished, and to offer Americans a return to normalcy.
Al Qaeda has been broken and the Taliban defeated. In contrast to Iraq, Afghanistan has been set on the tentative path to stability. The future of Iraq has long been out of our hands, as even the President seems to acknowledge when he says we can only leave when Iraqis can defend themselves (why doesn’t anyone ask, why the hell is our exit strategy on an Iraqi timetable anyway?).
We can extricate ourselves from Iraq and focus our attention and our resources on Domestic security. We won’t be any less safe than we are now, that should be obvious to anyone. No one feels safe now anyway, so again, where is the security we were promised would follow with the invasion of Iraq?
Meanwhile, Iraqis can make their own choice about the direction their country will take. Faced with a six month to a year timetable for American withdraw, maybe the Iraqis will step up to the task of forming their government and defending themselves.
With such a platform, the difference between Democrat and Republican could not be more stark. I happen to feel that Americans are ready to follow Democrats in this direction, if Democrats will only lead. Americans want to hear that the War on Terror is not a war without end, indeed that it is mostly finished already, in terms of its external militaristic aspects. Americans want to hear that we have given the last full measure in Iraq, and now it is time for the Iraqis to stand up. We’ve done all we can. If “all we can” has proved to be not enough, there is only one Party in this country to blame.
It is time to return to normalcy. This does not mean a return to complacency, or a softening of our defense. It means hardening our defense, growing our Special Forces, and fighting terrorism with solid realism, not belligerent idealism. It means investing in domestic issues here at home that make us vulnerable to terrorism. It means creating a Government that secures us from terrorism to the best of its ability; but it also means creating a Government that is prepared for an attack today, not merely responsive in a half-assed way after an attack.
Republicans cannot create that Government. The problem with Republicans is that in their heart, they don’t believe in Government. If you want to know why they screw up an issue as central to their identity as Homeland Security, it’s because they don’t know how to manage a bureaucracy. They are good at crippling it with tax cuts and a laissez faire management style. This, to them, is good governance.
Democrats, on the other hand, are expert bureaucrats. Domestic politics is a Democratic issue, as elections have consistently shown. Americans trust Democrats more on domestic issues. It’s time to make security a domestic issue and offer Americans a return to normalcy.
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“The problem with Republicans is that in their heart, they don’t believe in Government. If you want to know why they screw up an issue as central to their identity as Homeland Security, it’s because they don’t know how to manage a bureaucracy. They are good at crippling it with tax cuts and a laissez faire management style. This, to them, is good governance.”
That, I think, is an interesting take. Certainly democrats don’t seem to have an identity fault line in any way similar to what you describe here.
Comment by Todd — Thursday, 30 March 2006 @ 9:45 pm
Liberals often bemoan the fact that Red Staters don’t vote their interests. Well, Conservative votes don’t make sense on a number of levels, chief of which is the issue of why anyone would elect a politician who professes to detest government, and whose policies are aimed at cripling the government’s ability to govern or, in Conservative parlance, to “interfere” in people’s lives. Now that makes no sense!
Would you have a doctor operate on your cancerous tumor if he didn’t believe in modern medicine? Would you hire a lawyer to defend you if he expressed disdain for the American justice system? Then why elect a politician who despises Government?
Comment by Matthew — Thursday, 30 March 2006 @ 11:39 pm
Hey - Russ Feingold is a US Senator from Wisconsin and not the State’s governor.
Comment by cave dweller — Saturday, 1 April 2006 @ 4:16 pm
I know. I didn’t mean to suggest he was a Governor. I also say that of the two, Warner and Feingold, I like Warner best because he is a Governor rather than a Senator.
Comment by Matthew — Saturday, 1 April 2006 @ 4:22 pm
Neither conservative voters not the candidates for which they vote “detest” government. I am surprised that you would say that Republicans don’t believe in Government? Of course conservatives believe in government, we just believe in less of it. Is there anything wrong with that?
Too often rhetoric between us clouds our minds to the point where a firm understanding of the opposing point of view alludes us. It has been said that those who do not know their opponent’s arguments do not completely understand their own.
Comment by cave dweller — Saturday, 1 April 2006 @ 4:28 pm
I’ve been listening to Rush Limbaugh since 1991. I know what Conservatives think about Government. They may not be outright Libertarians, but they certainly claim that Government rarely solves problems. Usually, Government only makes problems even worse, in the eyes of a Conservative. Thus Conservatives decry “Government schools” (Neal Boortz’s phrase), and Government agencies, and the Government “confiscation” and “redistribution” of wealth from some citizens to others.
Does that description of what a Conservative believes sound like someone who appreciates all the good Government can do for people?
Comment by Matthew — Saturday, 1 April 2006 @ 4:34 pm
The last paragraph of the article you cited under the “Real Security” hyperlink reveals one of the real problems the Democrats have had:
“Democrats have polled extensively on national security, testing various possible messages for the fall, and found that the more emphasis put on securing the homeland, the more voters respond.”
Democrats are a party made up of a patchwork of special interests and social movements and are lacking any real platform or solidarity in their message. So they must co-opt a platform from the political right (Clinton was the master of this). Candidates running on a platform firmly planted on the political and social left would go down in flames every single time. You know it and I know it.
Consequently, Democrats will have to hold a wet finger up into the winds of public opinion and, once again, run on a platform of subterfuge.
Comment by cave dweller — Saturday, 1 April 2006 @ 4:45 pm
Matt, are you really impressed with the overall quality of “Government schoolsâ€. Government “confiscation†and “redistribution†of wealth has given us third and fourth generation welfare recipients. Have we really given the poor a helping hand or have we just created a welfare state where large segments of the population are stuck, with no hope, on the government dole?
Comment by cave dweller — Saturday, 1 April 2006 @ 4:53 pm
No, that description of what a Conservative believes sounds like it is coming from someone who does not have a firm grasp of conservative ideology. You may have been listening to Rush since 1991, Matt, but you do not seem to understand the Conservative mindset, at least not that of this Conservative. And I am very much in the Conservative mainstream.
Comment by cave dweller — Saturday, 1 April 2006 @ 5:24 pm
Wow, cave dweller, I missed the crash in California, which is, by the way, run by democrats (both houses of the Legislature, count ‘em. And what about those yahoos we keep sending to Washington? Dammit, that Dianne Feinstein keeps getting re-elected.) and an emasculated Republican governor who has had to kiss and make up (apparently to a non-platform. That’s gotta be hard to do.) in order to save his political life. But hey, no one gets elected on a lefty platform–but wait, there’s Gavin Newsom in San Francisco. It doesn’t get more progressive than that. And things aren’t so bad there. Some of the cleanest air in the state, good public transit, and he tells groups unfriendly to gays to buzz off to boot. Which is, of course, a platform he appropriated from the right.
It might be more than the sunshine that attracts thousands here every year.
Or are we talking on a national level? Those 40-some odd years of (more or less) Democratic control before the 80s? Clinton’s landslide victory in 1996? All apparently on issues important solely to the right, no appeal to the middle, to those on the left who are surely crazy, nothing. Amazing stuff.
But seriously, if you think either party stands for ideals, you’re dreaming. Those with big microphones do a lot of shouting while everyone is busy ignoring actual actions. In today’s TV age, politics is a game–and it’s called, who can run to the middle and get the best photo op the fastest? Why did Bush and Kerry wear the same suit and have the same mannerisms and stature and voice modulation? The rule for 95% of the politicians out there: Nobody stands up for anything other than getting elected–for example, take conservatives’ platform “fiscal restraint and smaller government.” Now check out our deficit right now and the largest expansion of government since FDR, I believe. Spending like democrats. Most elections boil down to whoever will make the most Americans feel the best about drinking the Kool-aid at that time. And it’s all cyclical. The pendulum eventually will swing back, of a fashion–but the shenanagins will be the same. It’ll just be perpetrated by a different party. But hopefully they’ll rack up fewer indictments.
Comment by Heather — Sunday, 2 April 2006 @ 3:24 am
AMEN– and Virginia (of all places) has had two democratic governors in a row–what a positive change for this state.
Comment by Lynn — Sunday, 2 April 2006 @ 9:15 pm
Actually, the “Regional Security Plan” for DC is a problem with the DC City Council, Congress, and folk from Virginia and Maryland.
4 groups of government officials, each with their own agenda equals gridlock.
As for the Democratic security plan, we tried their way for 8 years, it brought us the Khobar Towers, 1993 WTC attack, USS Cole attack, and 9/11. I’ll take forward looking and thinking security over “law enforcement” security any day of the week.
Comment by Crazy Politico — Monday, 3 April 2006 @ 8:36 am
Let’s be fair about this, CP: the Timeline of Terrorism you link to off your homepage goes back to Reagan and the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. Spread the blame around a little: it wasn’t just Democrats who practiced the policies you deride.
I think it’s an oversimplification to say that because we “ran” in 1984, and again throughout the nineties, therefore we have invited terrorism because of our weakness. One might equally make the claim that because of our aggressiveness and our hypocritical support of dictators like Saddam, we have stirred hatred of the United States. Maybe it was both policies that hurt us. Anyway, we aren’t doing much to correct either one, I don’t think. Every day in Iraq, terrorists demonstrate that they can hurt us, weaken our resolve, and achieve their own ends through the most savage of means despite our military presence. Meanwhile, we open negotiations with other “brutal regimes” (to use Bush’s phrase), like Iran, which we are handling with kid gloves compared to the way we handled Iraq.
Personally, I don’t view the way Reagan and Bush Sr. and Clinton dealt with terrorism as being all that far off the mark. I’m not ready to concede the point that “everything changed” on 9/11. I firmly deny that. Personally, I think its a surrender to the terrorists, if we believe that they changed us (or that we changed ourselves) as a result of that attack. The goal should be to remain true to our nation’s free and law-abiding way of life as a response to terrorism. To me, it’s a matter of letting terrorists know that they will not change us, that we will not be provoked.
Comment by Matthew — Monday, 3 April 2006 @ 9:09 am
You are correct, though the methods of dealing with them have been different for both GOP and Democratic administrations, all of them have had failings in the area of security.
On the handling of Iraq vs. Iran you forget that Iraq started a war in 1990 that didn’t end, but was halted by a truce. At over dozen points from then until 2003 Clinton or Bush could have invaded, and used as the reason Iraq’s violations of the ceasefire.
In Iran we have no such leverage or issue.
You are right, the only thing that changed on 9/11 was the way in which we decided to deal with terrorists. Instead of law enforcement and psuedo diplomacy we decided to try and eliminate them a little more directly, and regularly. Instead of a half a dozen tomahawks, and then a few more years of waiting for the next attack we took the offensive.
Comment by Crazy Politico — Tuesday, 4 April 2006 @ 7:46 am
The equation of Iraq with the War on Terror is a link I don’t accept…but I don’t want to argue it, either. I had no problem with the invasion of Afghanistan (I still don’t), and I have no problem with using tactical military strikes to eliminate terrorists. Don’t call it a war, though, because it isn’t, no more than a “war on crime” is a war.
As far as “waiting for the next attack,” essentially we aren’t any better off now that we are (nominally) on the offensive. No one disputes that there will probably be more attacks in the future; we aren’t dealing with a state that can be subjugated, the way we devastated Germany and Japan. As long as there is a perceived grievance, there will be terrorists to take revenge. Before Islamic terrorists, there were anarchists and revolutionaries of other stripes throwing molotovs and assassinating leaders.
That’s why I don’t look at Reagan and other Presidents as being misguided in their approach to terrorism. Condemning them as cowardly (Bill Clinton) or misguided (Reagan) is like condemning a police chief for not using preemptive force against everyone who poses a threat to other citizens.
I vaguely remember the ‘83 attack in Lebanon (I was just ten years old). I don’t think there were a lot of people angry at Reagan for not declaring a war on terrorism and invading Iran and Syria. I certainly remember the nineties, and there was no Conservative outrage at United States terrorism policy. There was criticism of the details of our response to terrorism, e.g. Conservatives mocked Clinton for the bombing of the aspirin factory after the ‘98 embassy bombings, but these were criticisms of Clinton (funny how military intelligence didn’t get any blame for that from Limbaugh and his cronies, isn’t it?)–not criticisms of the policy of tactical strikes in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.
Comment by Matthew — Tuesday, 4 April 2006 @ 8:26 am