Here's the Democratic Strategy for the Fall elections:
DO whatever is necessary to keep the stock markets moving downward until the election; and,
SAY whatever is necessary to keep the public confused about the difference between a growing economy and a shrinking stock market; and,
CAST DOUBT about the Bush Administration's handling of the situation; but,
DON'T GET CAUGHT!
Last week House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt was caught divulging the strategy of the Congressional Democrats leading up to the elections this fall.
According to Roll Call Newspaper, Gephardt told his caucus in a closed-door meeting -
SIDEBAR:
On Capitol Hill a "closed-door meeting" officially means reporters are not allowed in the room. What it really means is someone is likely to get hurt in the rush to get out of the room as soon as the meeting is over so that the participants can be an "unidentified source who was in the meeting" and tell as many reporters as he or she can corral, exactly what was said, and by whom.
Reporting about closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill is generally just short of a notarized transcript.
END SIDEBAR.
Anyway, Gephardt told his caucus that "if this thing plays out right, we could pick up 30 to 40 seats." According to the article, "this thing" is the "continuously unfolding corporate scandals."
The Democrats have tied their election-year fortunes to the Dow, the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500 indices.
They need the markets to continue to drop - and drop by enough to continue to be newsworthy - all the way to November 5th.
On the way they have to continually dig at public support for the President. They finally realized it doesn't do much good to say bad things about him personally, so they have shifted gears to tearing down the senior people around him.
After two weeks of savaging the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt; the Democrats turned their attention - briefly - to Vice President Dick Cheney which hasn't generated nearly the headlines they need, so they have now begun an underground drumbeat that Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is not the cheerleader the economy needs.
Democrats, and their allies in the popular press, are publicly pining for the good old days of Robert Rubin (who was Treasury Secretary under President Clinton and left to join Citigroup which is now under investigation for potentially helping Enron falsely book bank loans as revenue, but we digress).
One talking head was distressed that while the Dow was dropping, O'Neill was overseas. We ran out of time in the segment before I could ask what the Secretary was supposed to do - unplug the computer workstations on the trading floor?
Here's the Democrats' Dream: The markets continue to fall between at the rate of 107 points per trading day. The Dow will be at zero by election day.
The problems with this strategy are:
(1) It is unlikely - not impossible, but unlikely - that the markets will continue to free-fall for the next three and a half months. When the markets stabilize, as they almost certainly will, then they drop off the front pages, drop out of the radio talk show schedules, and are no longer the topic of discussion in every coffee shop in the land, the Democrats, again, will be without an issue.
(2) They might get caught. If America realizes Dick Gephardt is willing to put at risk the retirement security of millions of people for the partisan gain of six seats in the U.S. House, they will react appropriately.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today, the Gephardt article from Roll Call (plus a bonus article about Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham); a Washington Post piece about Enron and Citigroup (plus a scary "Separated at Birth:" Bob Rubin and Ralph Nader); as well as the usual things.
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