Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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I Was Right and I Was Wrong

Rich Galen

Monday December 06, 2004

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This is what I was right about: In the run-up to the November 2 election I said, about a thousand times, that voters who believed Iraq was one battleground in the world-wide war on terror would probably support President Bush. Those who believed Iraq was a one-off military adventure would probably vote for Senator Kerry.

The left-wing, 527 organization known as "Americans Coming Together" (ACT) did a series of post-election polls in Ohio to figure out why President Bush won there. According to a piece in yesterday's Washington Post the head of that organization, Steve Rosenthal, wrote it was not "moral values," nor was it enhanced turnout in "red" counties as opposed to the turnout in "blue" counties.

According to Rosenthal's polls, "By 55 percent to 42 percent, voters [in Ohio] accepted Bush's view that Iraq is a part of the war on terrorism." On top of that, by 58-40 Ohioans trusted the President to do a good job in handling the war on terror (of which Iraq is just one battleground) as opposed to "just 40 percent [who] said they trusted Kerry."

I'm shocked.

John Kerry tried to finesse the Iraq situation ("I voted for it, before I voted against it") but Howard Dean set the tone for the Democratic base, which was anti-Iraq war. Period.

Democrats are still trying to win the election based upon their opposition to the war in Iraq which will not do anything to help them get their arms around what needs to be done to regain some momentum moving into the mid-term elections in 2006.

A majority of Americans - and Ohioans - are, it turns out, quite sophisticated about the nature of the war the US is facing.

This is what I was wrong about: For years I have been saying, "American democracy works best when the two parties are equal and there is an aggressive press corps to keep tabs on both of them."

Here is my modified version: "American democracy works best when one party has a significant - but not overwhelming - advantage over the other and there is an aggressive press corps to keep tabs on both of them."

The reason is, when the two parties are so close that every vote - and every voter - is the difference between winning and losing on every bill and in every election, the intensity of the debate turns ugly and stays there.

Following the 2000 election the Senate was so close that the defection of Jeffords threw control to the Democrats. Even after the 2002 mid-term elections, the Senate was so closely divided that no bill was a certainty to pass with Republican votes alone.

Now that the GOP has a ten-vote bulge in the Senate, every Senator's vote is not life and death. The Democrats in the Senate, without any real hope of winning outright in many legislative battles, can throttle their rhetoric back and work behind the scenes to get the best deal they can.

In the House the situation is a little different. The majority controls everything. Effective this morning the GOP has a 232-203 29-vote edge over the Democrats. The Democrats have not had a real say in legislation for the last several Congresses.

But now, the Dems in the House have to come to grips with the reality that they are, and will continue to be, the minority party until at least 2012. Rather than stomping their legislative feet every time the GOP rolls over them, they will begin to realize that working with the majority rather than continuing to work against the Republicans will be their best path - indeed their only path.

This is not to say that the Democrats should roll over and play dead. It is to say that they will have to come to grips with the reality that faces them and save their parliamentary ammunition for those occasions when they can actually make a difference, rather than to attempt to draw blood on every vote, every day.

It should not surprise you if the word "civility" begins to creep back into usage when discussing the relationship among members of the US House and Senate.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: A link to the Washington Post article, a pretty cool Christmas Mullfoto and a link to another Iraq Flashback.

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