Crossroads The Future of American Politics

Letter from a Democratic Party Pooper Tim Ashe A master's student at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Tim Ashe formerly worked on the staff of Congressman Bernie Sanders in Vermont, where he resides. The emperor can change his clothes, but he'll still be naked. This extension of the classic fable lies at the heart of the failure of national Democrats to capture the imagination (and needed votes) of the electorate. It also explains why I left the Democratic Party. Two story lines in the Democrats' operatic departure from a cogent belief set explain why Republicans have made such major gains in recent years at the federal, state, and local levels. First, the Democratic Leadership Council has successfully, though never substantively, argued that the American voter is in the middle. Second, while the Republicans put up a united front with a lockstep set of positions on key issues, the Democrats have been drifting, aimlessly "appealing" to one voter bloc or another. This second point not only suggests the need for a reaffirmation of core party beliefs, but also questions whether the current party leadership will be able to turn this tragic play into a comedy. In July 2001, a freelance writer confronted President Bush in a greeting line and told him he was disappointed with his performance to that point. Bush, responding with customary charm, allegedly said, "Who cares what you think?" Before turning to a discussion of the recent failings of the Democratic Party, let me tell you why you should care what I think. I should be a Democrat. From Massachusetts, mother a teacher and father a civil servant, family of Kennedy-philes, student at the Kennedy School of Government. Most important, onetime Democratic voter. I've got a long life of political activism ahead of me. My loyalties are to ideas and not a party, so if my energies are not going to the Dems, they'll be going somewhere else. It's up to the leadership of the party to decide whether people like me will return to and someday lead the party that once stood more strongly and clearly for the average citizen. So Who Is a Liberal? Al From, Bruce Reed, and others who subscribe to the moderating tendencies of the Democratic Leadership Council would have us believe that the majority of Americans are center or just right of center on the political spectrum. As evidence, they cite various polls in which registered voters more often than not self-identify as somewhat or mostly conservative. Anything, that is, except a liberal. And so, the logic goes, the Democratic Party needs to move to the center because that's where the voters are. There are two critical points that call these self-identifying polls into question. First, the very word liberal has followed the path of "political correctness." In other words, it's pejorative. It's a badge of shame that emasculates men and radicalizes women. And in a cruel marriage that has Tom DeLay licking his lips, it's not uncommon to hear today's iconoclastic media figures referring to one or another "politically correct liberal." The labels make matters exponentially worse when coupled: "tax-and-spend liberals," or, better yet, "Kennedy liberals." Any observer with an ear to the ground can agree that most people (including many members of Congress) want to be called a liberal like they want to drink poison. Can we trust the instinct to move to the center? Can Demo- crats afford to lurch yet farther to the middle because a sample of voters will not say that they are liberal? Perhaps an appropriate manner of answering these questions, and to get to the second point, is to put the onus on theCuomo, Andrew is the author of 'Crossroads The Future of American Politics', published 2003 under ISBN 9781400061457 and ISBN 1400061458.