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January 20, 2010, 8:08 am

The Democrats’ Day After

Mark Wilson/Getty Images Democratic leaders after the Senate passed national health care legislation on Dec. 24. From left to right: Max Baucus, Charles Schumer, Harry Reid, Richard Durbin and Christopher Dodd.

We will be updating this discussion with additional commentary throughout the day. Read Glenn Greenwald, Theda Skocpol, Norman Ornstein and Julian Zelizer in the forum.

The finger-pointing over the loss of the Senate seat in Massachusetts raises a perennial question in American politics: why do the Democrats always seem to be in disarray even when they control the White House, the Senate and the House? Why are the Republicans so much better at checking the power of the majority? Is this difference a matter of political discipline or is it rooted in the ideologies of the parties?



Update | 10:10 a.m.

A Party in Denial

Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer, is a columnist at Salon.com and the author, most recently, of “Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics.”

Reactions to Scott Brown’s victory are predictable and self-serving. Obama loyalists insist it was all about local issues and Coakley’s weaknesses. Right-wing Democrats blame the “left elements in the Party” — who have gotten virtually nothing they’ve wanted the entire year. And most everyone else interprets it as vindication of their pre-existing views.

Obama has failed on his vow to change the way Washington works and that is the party’s greatest liability.

Whatever else is true, last night’s result — along with earlier gubernatorial losses in Virginia and New Jersey, polling disasters for Democratic Congressional incumbents, and the bizarre resurgence of a party widely assumed to be dead only a year ago — conclusively proves that something has gone radically wrong for the Democratic Party. One has to be in serious denial not to acknowledge that their approach is not working.

Read more…


The Democrats’ Learned Timidity

Theda Skocpol

Theda Skocpol is a professor of government and sociology at Harvard University, and the author of “Boomerang: Health Reform and the Turn Against Government,” a book about the failed 1993-94 Clinton heath care overhaul.

Why can’t the Democrats manage to move things forward? Why are they allowing the filibuster to block things when the Republicans did not? Why do Republicans use the filibuster much more than the Democrats did when they were in the substantial minority?

The Democrats haven’t reformed Senate rules that block change because they too love the personal clout those practices give them.

There are no perfect answers. Part of the answer may be the learned timidity and ready-for-defeatism of Democrats, who have not shaped national political or economic narratives since the 1960s. They have forgotten how to make heartfelt arguments, how to play hardball, and are always expecting to cave or surrender. But that is not all of it, and here are a few other considerations:

– Republicans under Bush used 51-vote rules meant for budget items to push through tax cuts for the wealthy. Tax cuts fit these rules better than many aspects of, say, health care reform right now, because a lot of that is regulatory.

Read more…


How Party Cultures Differ

Norman Ornstein

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Our two major political parties have differences, and they are more than ideological (although they are more ideological now than at any time in our lifetimes). Some of the differences are cultural: Republicans in office tend to be more disciplined, more sensitive to internal ostracism, more willing to stick together.

When Democrats are in the minority, they like to cut deals, even with the other side.

That may be because of a minority mentality; even though Republicans have had a sizable slice of power in Washington over the past couple of decades, an era of 40 straight years (actually, 60 out of 64 years dating from 1930 to 1994) shut out of the House of Representatives, with nearly as dismal results in the Senate, left an imprint. Republicans feel embattled even when in power, and they tend to hunker down together.

To be sure, activist conservatives out in the field don’t show any impulse to hunker down with establishment leaders. Their threats, rarely idle, to take on apostates in primaries provide further reasons for moderate Republicans to join with their conservative colleagues even when their ideological impulses might take them into bipartisan land. And partly as a result of those threats, there are very few moderate Republican lawmakers left in Washington.

Read more…


The Myth of Republican Discipline

Julian Zelizer

Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and author of “Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security From World War II to the War on Terrorism.”

Democrats continually wonder why their party seems to have so much trouble holding their coalition together. The fact is, any major political coalition is unwieldy and hard to keep intact. It’s a myth that Republicans have had an easier time remaining united.

Republican presidents — from Eisenhower to Nixon to Bush — have also struggled to keep their coalitions together.

When in power, Republicans have always struggled to maintain control. During the 1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower engaged in fierce battles with Midwestern Republicans who were opposed to excessive foreign intervention and who did not think Eisenhower was doing enough to fight communism at home.

In the 1970s, Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford faced problems of their own. Ronald Reagan, the California governor at the time, and other fellow conservatives railed against the policy of détente, claiming that the G.O.P. was too willing to negotiate with the Soviets over arms control.


Reagan, who challenged Ford in the Republican primaries in 1976, complained that the G.O.P. had adopted Democratic domestic policies as well.

By 1982, one year into his own presidency, even Ronald Reagan was under attack from the very conservatives who propelled him into office. They charged that he was ignoring social issues like abortion and allowing continued government spending. In 1986 and 1987, they warned that he was being duped by Mikhail Gorbachev to agree to arms reductions. Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, felt the ire of the right when Congressman Newt Gingrich stormed out of budget negotiations when the president abandoned his campaign pledge not to raise taxes.

And even President George W. Bush came under attack from the right for promoting “Big Government Conservatism” and allowing for a dangerous expansion of executive power.

Of course, the Democrats have struggled with keeping coalitions together. Between the 1930s and 1960s, one of the most skillful presidents to hold the office, F.D.R., had to deal with the deep division that existed between southern Democrats and northern Democrats over issues like race and unionization.

He left civil rights almost entirely off his agenda and agreed to design federal programs, like Old Age Assistance and Aid to Dependent Children in 1935, that protected the local autonomy of southern politicians and local racial structures. Today, President Obama faces divisions between “Red State Democrats” and “Blue State Democrats” who differ over issues such as deficits and government regulation.

The difficulties of keeping a coalition together have always been amplified by the legislative process — in F.D.R.’s case with the enormous power of committee chairs who tended to be Southerners and with Obama, the filibuster that forces 60 Senate votes.

The reality is that unity frequently turns on presidential leadership. Successful presidents either have to form grand compromises, like Roosevelt did, or they have to be willing to govern with a strong hand over members of their own party, like George W. Bush. If they are not willing or able to employ one of those tactics, they run the risk of watching their coalition implode.