Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Half Empty and Leaking

Wednesday May 28, 2003

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Travel Alert: I am going to Paris - France, not Texas - tonight for a colleague's wedding. The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices will be going with, which will probably save my life, but will likely make the Travelogue somewhat less mirthful.

We are due back Sunday night. If you haven't heard from us by Monday, call INTERPOL.

I mean it!

New York Times reporter, Adam Clymer wrote a two-part series over the holiday weekend examining the state of the Republican and Democratic parties.

Here's what he said about the state of the GOP: "[Republican] Party officials around the country, convinced that this may be their moment, are raising the prospect of an era of Republican dominance."

"Republicans," he wrote, "are more cohesive than Democrats and have a few core beliefs - lower taxes, less bureaucracy, more military spending - that unite them more than social issues divide them."

And this is what Clymer wrote about the state of the Democratic party: "... the Democrats' glass is not half full, but half empty, and it appears to be leaking."

Clymer reminded us that after the disaster of the 1974 Watergate election, the GOP was down to less than a third of the voting members of the US House - 144 Republicans, only "18 percent [of the population] thought of themselves as Republicans ... while 42 percent" identified themselves as Democrats.

Now, thirty years on, the worm has turned. It is not impossible, but it is unlikely, that the Democrats will regain control of the US House any time before the 2012 post-redistricting election. The GOP majority in the US Senate is likely to grow by between two and four seats as the result of the 2004 elections, and "for the first time in 50 years, a majority of state legislators are Republicans."

Not only that, but the GOP is actively seeking to expand its membership with non-traditional groups: Labor, African-Americans, Hispanics and Jews.

Ron Brownstein wrote in the LA Times this week about the President's engagement in a Middle East peace process "has triggered a series of tremors in U.S. politics that culminated last week in the unlikely spectacle of some of the most liberal Jewish political activists in America moving to defend Bush."

Democrats are faced with three problems: First, the Democratic party is at war with itself. The Left wing wants a return to its First Principles which are not particularly popular in the nation right now; the Center wants a return to Clintonism which is unpopular with rank-and-file primary voters on the Left.

Second, without the control of the House, Senate or Administration there is no single voice around whom rank-and-file Democrats can rally. Even when the Democrats did control one of the Houses of Congress following the Jeffords defection, Democratic Leader Tom Daschle discovered - as did Newt Gingrich - how difficult it can be to drive public opinion from the Eastern end of Pennsylvania Avenue when there is a committed and active Administration operating from the Western end.

This situation will probably not resolve itself until a Democratic nominee is chosen - perhaps not until next March or April, ten months down the political road.

Third, even if the Democratic party HAD a messenger, his or her message would be one of hoping for failure. In order for the Democratic party to be successful in 2004, it needs the Bush Administration to fail in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Middle East and in its domestic policies and on the terrorism front and the Democrats need the economy to tank.

The Democratic party, then, is in the position of a professional football team, having lost one too many games during the regular season, hoping that the other teams in its division lose so it can make the playoffs.

This, in the parlance of sport, is called "backing in" which is no way to enter the White House

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the two Clymer pieces and to the Ron Brownstein column; a nice Mullfoto of the MD of S&P at Arlington National Cemetery Monday; and a very excellent Catchy Caption of the Day.

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