Whither The Democrats? Obama and The Democratic Special Election Victories

For better or for worse, the Democrats found a winning strategy when Bill Clinton used the Democratic Leadership Council, and issues such as the death penalty and welfare reform, which up to that point pretty much belonged to Republicans, to become the first two-term President since FDR.

Clinton’s legacy will likely be about how he changed the philosophical framework of the Democratic Party, in order to make it viable again, after the fundamental shift in allegiance that occurred after the civil rights and voting rights Acts in the 1960s. As necessary as both of these were in laying the groundwork for equality and justice to black Americans, they had the effect of driving blue dog Democrats into the arms of Republicans. Until Clinton, the Democrats did not have a clue about how to get such voters back from the GOP’s unsavory embrace.

Democratic fortunes, after Bill Clinton (ABC), have been not been so good though and, in fact, congressional Democrats even during Clinton’s tenure took a drubbing so severe when Newt Gingrich and company swept them from office in the 1994 elections, that they have never fully recovered although they currently have small majorities in both the House and the Senate.

The recent victories of Democrats in the three special elections held in Republican districts, though, have Democrats positively giddy at their prospects in the congressional and presidential races in the fall and, likewise, have Republicans wringing their hands in despair.

In order to win these districts, Democrats took a page out of the Clinton book, putting up candidates that were nearly as conservative in most respects as the Republicans they were running against. Most recently, in the election in Mississippi, earlier this month, the Democrat, Travis Childers, was all but indistinguishable from his opponent, Greg Davis, when campaigning against abortion, indicating his adoration of guns, and, in general, giving little reason for Republicans to think he’d do much different than his opponent. It was the same for socially conservative, anti-abortion Dan Cazayoux in his victory in Louisiana over Woody Jenkins, who also won his election in May, and fiscal conservative Bill Foster’s March win over former Speaker of the US House, Dennis Hastert, in Illinois.

Democrats took even more away from these victories, though, because the Republicans poured money into all three elections and used much of it on creating ads attempting to link Obama and House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to the Democratic candidates. Obama’s association with Wright was featured prominently in some of the ads and the association certainly believed by the Republicans to be not only political poison to Obama but to the House candidates as well. Because the Democrats won, and because many believed this to be not only a kind of referendum on Obama, but a measure of how he will fare with more conservative voters in the general election, the victories have taken on great meaning.

Too much meaning, probably. These ads and, more generally, the attempt to link Obama to these conservative Democrats, didn’t work because the candidates were well known to voters and the idea that they shared much in common with Obama was simply not taken seriously. The Democratic candidates themselves certainly did not make either Obama or Pelosi the centerpieces of their campaigns and, indeed, distanced themselves from liberal to moderate Democrats by generally emphasizing their conservative positions on guns, abortion, and taxes.

In fact, Obama actually bucks the trend of the more conservative Democrat that has proven so successful. His association with reverend Jeremiah Wright, who is perceived rightly or wrongly by many as a radical, his fleeting association with former Weather Underground member William Ayers, and his positions on everything from negotiating with countries like Cuba without any preconditions to questions about where he stands on gun rights, put him, for many, nearer on the political spectrum to George McGovern than Bill Clinton or, to be sure, the conservative congressmen recently elected.

Although this rightward shift of the Party is troubling in many ways (the shift to supporting the death penalty which has pretty much become a litmus test for electability is especially repugnant), it is difficult to argue that it is not a necessary one. The liberal candidates that Democrats have frequently produced after Kennedy have simply been out of step with too many voters.

Not all is lost, however. Despite the shift, Democrats continue to have significant differences with Republicans. If you don’t think the differences are that large, just ask the families of the thousands of Americans killed in Iraq, or the Iraqi families who lost far more lives and had their lives turned up-side-down by a war that was against the wrong enemy, bungled terribly in its prosecution, and to which little or no thought was given to monetary costs or even an exit strategy.

In addition, despite the conservative shift, the Party framework should help ensure that even conservative Democrats will vote with their more moderate colleagues. Many Republicans, for example, were strongly against the new Medicare prescription drug benefit legislation that was passed in 2003 but changed their votes so as to not break ranks with the Party. Democrats, even very conservative ones, will be no different.

Obama is clearly an exception to the moderate-to-conservative trends represented by Bill Clinton and, most recently, the victorious Democrats in the House elections.

And if he is the Party’s nominee, the question will be whether Obama’s charisma and ability to turn out voters will be enough to make his fate an exception to that of previous liberal Democratic nominees.