Dem Victory Vindication For Those Who Pushed For Fearless National Security Counterattacks
One key point that's been all but lost in the post-election coverage is this: The Dem routing of the GOP on Tuesday represents a huge vindication for those who demanded that Dems counterattack aggressively in the face of GOP national security attacks and stop scurrying for cover every time Karl Rove promised yet another "escalation" in such rhetoric.
No, I'm not talking about Rahm Emanuel, who was lionized at length today in the New York Times for aggressively taking on the GOP over Iraq. Rather, I'm talking about those who pushed for a fearless, genuinely oppositional Dem posture on national security issues early in the cycle, when it wasn't anywhere near as obvious as it became later that doing so would produce victory.
Early on, anyone who suggested that Dems shouldn't be afraid to call for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq or to oppose President Bush on wiretapping or torture was subjected to a steady stream of withering scorn from allegedly in-the-know pundits. Those who backed Ned Lamont's antiwar candidacy were dismissed by David Broder and others in the D.C. opinionmakers guild as crazy, extreme, beneath contempt. In one typical example last February, Marshall Wittman charged that opposition to Bush's warrantless wiretapping program showed that "the Democratic Party is increasingly under the influence of modern day McGovernites," warning: "Let's get serious."
It's a good thing indeed that Dems didn't heed the advice from Wittman and others that they get "serious," now isn't it.
In the face of this kind of contempt, some -- bloggers, a few columnists, some within the party, etc. -- argued that the better course for Dems politically, and the right one morally, was to fearlessly stand up and articulate opposition to warrantless wiretapping and torture, and try to win arguments on these questions, rather than shying away from them. Dem party leaders began to do the same, although later in the game, hitting Bush hard on wiretapping and torture and demanding a "change of course" in Iraq. While Dem leaders' stance on Iraq generally stopped short of setting a specific date for withdrawal, it reflected a belated Dem recognition that the electorate wanted to hear more than criticism of the Bush administration's execution of the war in Iraq, and that it would respond to a call for a change of course, which, while vague, represented a tougher, more confrontational position.
By August the election's storyline had visibly changed. The news orgs began trumpeting the Dems' new confrontational stance on national security questions and started pointing to polls showing that the electorate was no longer giving the GOP the automatic benefit of the doubt on them. This shift in conventional wisdom was critical to the ultimate outcome. It further stiffened the Dem spine. And it was a blow to the morale of the GOP, which had grown accustomed to being granted unquestioned superiority -- by pundits and voters alike -- on these issues.
In district after district, GOP candidates followed the Karl Rove "stay-the-course-versus-cut-and-run" playbook, bashing the Dem leadership's positions on wiretapping, torture and Iraq. Dems fought back hard, arguing that GOP policies made us less safe. Dems won the argument hands down. As polls just before the election showed, the electorate fully understood that Dems were going to challenge and change the White House's approach to the war on terror -- and it voted overwhelmingly for Dems, anyway. In Connecticut, GOP Rep. Nancy Johnson launched despicable ads hammering Dem Chris Murphy on wiretapping; she lost by 10 points. In Montana, Dem Jon Tester boldly called for the repeal of the Patriot Act, even though pundits scoffed that this was tantamount to political self-immolation. But Tester stood his ground, making the rather novel argument that his position was the mainstream one, no matter what anyone else said about it. He's now the next Senator from Montana.
What of Lieberman? The Wittmanites, predictably, are trying to spin Lieberman's victory as a sign that the mainstream prevailed over the extremes. But this isn't what happened at all. A key reason Lieberman won was because he successfully confused the electorate about his actual foreign positions, which are well to the right of majority opinion, while successfully mischaracterizing Lamont's as extreme, when it fact Lamont's were the ones genuinely in tune with those of the majority. And even if Lieberman did win in the end, let's remember that Lieberman predicted a Lamont primary win would mean doom for the Dems. Exactly the opposite happened -- it galvanized Dem candidates across the country and inspired the GOP to tie itself even more tightly to its "stay the course versus cut and run" strategy.
Recalling all this is much more than I-told-you-so post-election handicapping. It's critical to the battles ahead, because at the center of them will be a fight over what actually constitues majority opinion on Iraq and the war on terror. At yesterday's press conference, Bush fired the opening shot in these coming wars, saying that Americans won't "accept defeat" in Iraq -- an effort to position himself, incredibly, as still representing mainstream opinion. But Dems should never again let the likes of Wittman, Broder, Lieberman, Bush or anyone else dictate what majority opionion is. Rather, they should listen to what the majority has to say about it, as muddled and self-contradictory as its opinions often seem. That's what Dems did in this election, and they were rewarded rather handsomely for it.
Along the way we have to remember just how important Murtha's speaking out was, and the Lamont primary victory over Lieberman. The latter signalled to every Democratic candidate that if they meant to mine the energy and passion of the Democratic base and appeal to the antiwar independents that going directly after Bush and his cronies on the war was essential. It is because Biden, Lieberman, Bayh, Clinton, DLC, Beinart, Daalder, et.al. handcuffed the Dems so long to fears of being weak on security that this disaster has continued so long and Democratic electoral success has been so scarce until now. Finally after the Lieberman primary defeat the issue was forced by the Republicans (making Lieberman a GOP-surrogate) and emboldening some Dem candidates.
November 9, 2006 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
yes, you're completely right. the lamont victory also got the GOP to tie itself tighter to the "stay the course vers. cut and run" strategy. and we know how that turned out.
November 9, 2006 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes even a loss moves the ball forward.
Picking John Kerry as our nominee in 2004 also signaled the fact that Democrats were ready to take responsibility for national security. The country needed two more years to get to a place where they could hear it, but that was indeed the start of our road toward taking national security. And whatever you think happened to Kerry in 04', take a moment to imagine what they would have been able to do to other candidates with less natiional security cred than Kerry. Then imagine how much harder the road would have been to this mid-term.
As far as Murtha, I agree that his role was also critical. As was all of the fighting Dems we ran this cycle.
Mr. Allen, meet Mr. Webb's combat boot.
November 9, 2006 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another aspect of this victory is how well the Dems utilized the Karl Rove strategy:
Attack your opponent on their strengths and put them on the defensive. It worked against Kerry, but this time it worked against the Repugs because we actually did it and they could not defend their own policies.
November 9, 2006 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
Hear! Hear!
If only the Dems hadn't waited until five minutes before midnight to get real
November 9, 2006 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats shouldn't forget that Murtha's stand against Dubya was aided by Pelosi. We should be grateful to have someone as clever as her on our side:
November 9, 2006 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually if you listened to Lieberman's ads you would think he was the anti=war candidate--extolling that he will try his best to get the troops home as soon as possible. He also called for Rumsfeld's resignation.
Thus, he took Lamont's position. Those who are informed about his history know the truth but low-info voters will think he is serious.
November 9, 2006 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lieberman in the general election dropped the stay the course and followed Lamont anti-Iraq War rhetoric.
November 9, 2006 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope Murtha gets rewarded with a leadership post in the new democratically controlled Congress...he has earned it. While others spoke of leadership he stepped up and showed leadership...
November 9, 2006 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fair points about Lieberman's fuding and the spin elsewhere of Lamont as one-issue candidate, extremist, feckless, the usual when running as insurgent regardless of beliefs. It's possible that we'd have done better with a quick jump on the campaign right after the primacy for both him and leading Democrats to stake out the mainstream, insisting that he represented the breadth of the party fair and square, and Lieberman had better just call himself a Republican. That might have required more advance commitments, before primary results, from leading party figures than might have been possible. I can even why they'd might have wanted to hedge, to be sure they have Lieberman in the caucus in a situtation like the one right now, where a majority turns on it.
But that's just guessing. Perhaps the biggest factor is still that we're dealing with a Democrat who often votes GOP and managed to win 70 percent of the GOP vote, in a state in which voters mostly identify themselves as Democrats but often vote GOP, in which a Democrat is never able to start with that much base from the opposition. and in which (as everywhere) an incumbent has so much recognition. Think of how much the NJ race hinged not on just the obvious (is one guy a crook? is the other a Bushie?) but on name recognition, so that the Democrat ads always repeated as often as possible "junior" to tell voters he isn't you know how.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
November 9, 2006 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lamont's campaign contributed as much to this election cycle as a busloasd of political consultants. Lieberman is to be credited with running a very canny campaign--though I doubt that FEC investigation over the slush fund is going to go away anytime soon. I, for one, was sorry to see Lamont lose, not only because of a dislike of Liberman (who seems as hollow politicians come) , but because he possessed a certain humility that a lot of folks up there lack.
Still, in six years, he could run again. Never say never.
November 9, 2006 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree with your assessment of Lieberman’s tactic of confusion and slight of hand. One additional point he had in his favor was the power of being the incumbent. It is often name recognition that gets a vote and to some extent, I'm sure quite a few uninformed voters just followed the newspapers endorsement list.
On DKos, someone noted Lieberman had 10 out of 14 CT papers endorsement. I read the New Haven Register endorsement piece and parts of it sounded like it was written by Camp Joe. "... we are concerned that Lamont will not release his wife's tax returns ..."
Did they mention that Lamont met all filing requirements without the tax stuff? Nope.
Did they mention the $387,000 in petty cash Camp Joe disposed of in the primary? Nope.
At least the Hartford Courant, which had run some critical pieces on Camp Joe, made a bit more of a solid case for Joe.
November 9, 2006 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
this is a boring dialog that i hope withers and dies now that dems have won some elections. the narrative described above does not reflect anything that i witnessed during the last six months. and if dems had lost, i'm sure the narrative written above would be TAILORED to that outcome. regardless of the facts. for instance, i watched debates between mccaskill and talent, and debates between tester and burns. i don't remember the wire tap issue being brought up once. if it was brought up in the lamont debates, or in that campaign, it was brought up tangentially.
and there's certainly enough data collected during this election that would allow someone at the DLC to write an equally self-congratulatory email to his team.
there's some revisionism on both sides. from the blogosphere perspective, every winner took their cues from ned lamont. every successful candidate was more liberal than they probably really are, more inclined to adhere to ideology.
from the DC perspective every winner was moderate, many were pro-life, and tied bush's failed policies to iraq successfully to the entire republican party, nobody who won an election was out there demanding adherance to the murtha plan. nobody who won was campaigning with blogosphere endorsed uber-liberals. more inclined towards bipartisanship.
go figure.
take webb.
to hear the blogosphere talk, he's an anti-war champion who based his campaign on troop withdrawal regardless of the consequences.
to hear the DC dems talk, webb is a moderate. pat buchanan just called him a warrior.
so what's the truth? both and neither.
of course if we had to have deeply irrational and embittered fights over why we lost, i guess it only makes sense that we continue to fight those same tiresome battles about why we won.
all i can say is if the blogosphere thinks dems won cause those dems acted like ned lamont. oi vey.
if rahm emmanual believes dems won cause dems acted like republicans. oi vey.
both are wrong.
but both probably don't think like that in those terms.
just too god damned stuck in the rut and rhetoric of an intra-party warfare over the spoils of consultant money.
newsflash: dems won cause incompetence in NO became fused with military incompetence. if they can't respond to a natural disaster here, it's no wonder iraq has become a disaster. add in the corruption. add in the debt.
btw, lamont lost cause more republicans voted for lieberman than schlessinger.
my opinion is that americans are totally sick of the ideological strictness of the republican agenda. no dem won cause they went out there and promised to replace strict adherance to one ideology with strict adherence to another.
November 9, 2006 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, a lot of folks are saying that the Dems didn't win, the GOP lost, and there is some truth there, but not much.
The GOP did lose, but not simply because they didn’t campaign well, they were using the same slanderous techniques that has worked for them in the past. The reason the pubs got shellacked is because their policies are bad. The overall position of the Republican Party is that the pursuit of profit and individual gain is at the core of societal success. While the Dems overall position is that the government should assist citizens with their day-to-day needs, as a benefit of living here and paying taxes. Unless people are made to feel terrified and powerless, the Dems will win often. This is why the Rove strategy of "continuous war and fear" was so successful.
The Dems won because they did finally get over the fear of being called "traitors" and "aides to the enemy" and told it like it is. The American people are only so dumb and when the real stories were told and re-told they realized that it was 'time for a change' and thank God!
November 9, 2006 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lamont lost because he went on vacation after his primary win and allowed Lieberman to regroup. Had he immediately insisted the Lieberman heed the will of the voters and graciously concede, Lieberman would have no doubt continued his independent bid, but as a sore loser in denial, instead of as a bipartisan independent. I don't know who made the decison to have Lamont go on vacation, but that decision clearly destroyed the Lamont momentum, and he never recovered.
In that same vein, the Democrats need to go on the offensive NOW, and not wait until January.
November 9, 2006 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find the vitriol of Brooks and Whittman towards Daily Kos instructive. On the same day that Whittman is childishly engaged in nasty name calling, the people over at Daily Kos are celebtating Webb's and Testor's wins along with all the other great Democratic victories.
I believe that people like Whittman, Brooks and Broder identify so strongly with Lieberman because he vindicates their mistaken support for the war. These guys can admit that the war turned out badly but they can't accept that their initial decision to support the war was flawed and naive. If Lieberman is deemed to be a reasonable centrist than his support of the war, even if wrong, must on some level be reasonable. Thus, an attack on the supposed centrist Lieberman is an attack on them.
I opposed this war from the beginning. I think war should be a last resort. I also think that it was a mainstream view before the invasion that pre-emptive war was against US policy. I hardly see how these views make me a nut case.
People resort to name calling and labeling to marginalize their opponents and cut off discussion. In this case these pundits who see themselves as centrist simply do not want to allow for the possibility that the decision to go to war was itself unreasonable and a shift away from the center.
As an aside, I have to admit I was disappointed at Lamont's loss. But on the bright side, I'm convinced that the $50 I sent to his campaign contributed in some small way to keeping Lieberman off of Fox for a few months. Another victory!!!
November 9, 2006 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even with the superb endorsement of Ned Lamont, The New York Times, and other newspapers, never grasped that Ned Lamont, a single individual--who ultimately did not win his race--changed the course of a nation. Ned seized on the Iraq war before the Republicans even got out of the gate, and he verbalized what almost everyone in the country was already thinking: the Iraq war is an unmitigated disaster that is bankrupting our country. Ned is a leader, a hero, and, not coincidentally, one of the most decent men to ever run for public office. It's no wonder he terrified most of the spineless Beltway Democrats. Only Kerry and Kennedy stood up for Ned, among sitting senators, and those who refused to stand by him have written their political obituaries by their actions. The crossover votes from Republicans on Tuesday were not given by those who necessarily agree with Democratic platforms. They were given by those looking for courageous opposition.
November 9, 2006 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
and don't forget Paul Hackett's run against Jean Schmidt in 04. The lesson is, of course, if you want to stop thugs like the Big Evil, you have to be willing to fight. The Dems under the guidance and leadership of the DLC, Beinart and the rest of the moderate-to-right crew were perceived (I wonder why) as weak and unwilling to take a stand. That image was shattered by Dean, Lamont, Murtha, Hackett and then most of the party in 06. Another lesson: we have to marginalize the DLC.
November 10, 2006 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink