March 14: Democrats Really Were in Disarray Over Spending Bill
Having spent much of the week watching the runup to a crucial Senate vote on appropriations, I had to express at New York some serious misgivings about Chuck Schumer’s strategy and what it did to his party’s messaging:
For the record, I’m usually disinclined to promote the hoary “Democrats in Disarray” narrative whereby the Democratic Party is to blame for whatever nightmarish actions Republicans generally, or Donald Trump specifically, choose to pursue. That’s particularly true right now when Democrats have so little actual power and Republicans have so little interest in following laws and the Constitution, much less precedents for fair play and bipartisanship. So it really makes no sense to accuse the powerless minority party of “allowing” the assault on the federal government and the separation of powers being undertaken by the president, his OMB director Russ Vought, and his tech-bro sidekick Elon Musk. If congressional Republicans had even a shred of integrity or courage, Senate Democrats would not have been placed in the position this week of deciding whether it’s better to let the government shut down than to let it be gutted by Trump, Vought, and Musk.
Having said all that, Senate Democrats did have a strategic choice to make this week, and based on Chuck Schumer’s op-ed in the New York Times explaining his decision to get out of the way and let the House-passed spending bill come to the floor, he made it some time ago. Nothing in his series of rationalizations was new. If, indeed, “a shutdown would be the best distraction Donald Trump could ask for from his awful agenda,” while enabling the administration to exert even more unbridled power over federal programs and personnel, that was true a week ago or a month ago as well. So Schumer’s big mistake was leading Senate Democrats right up to the brink of a collision with the administration and the GOP, and then surrendering after drawing enormous attention to his party’s fecklessness.
This doesn’t just look bad and feel bad for Democrats demanding that their leaders do something to stop the Trump locomotive: It also gives the supreme bully in the White House incentive to keep bullying them, as Josh Marshall points out in his postmortem on the debacle:
“[P]eople who get hit and abused and take it tend to get hit and abused again and again. That’s all the more true with Donald Trump, a man who can only see the world through the prism of the dominating and the dominated. It is a great folly to imagine that such an abject acquiescence won’t drive him to up the ante.”
The reality is that this spending measure was the only leverage point congressional Democrats had this year (unless Republicans are stupid enough not to wrap the debt-limit increase the government must soon have in a budget reconciliation bill that cannot be filibustered). Everyone has known that since the new administration and the new Congress took office in January. If a government shutdown was intolerable, then Democrats should have taken it off the table long before the House voted on a CR. Punchbowl News got it right:
“Let’s be blunt here: Democrats picked a fight they couldn’t win and caved without getting anything in return. …
“Here’s the lesson from this episode: When you have no cards, fold them early.”
Instead, Democrats have taken a defeat and turned it into a debacle. House and Senate Democrats are divided from each other, and a majority of Senate Democrats are all but shaking their fists at their own leader, who did in fact lead them down a blind alley. While perhaps the federal courts will rein in the reign of terror presently underway in Washington (or perhaps they won’t), congressional Democrats must now become resigned to laying the groundwork for a midterm election that seems a long time away and hoping something is left of the edifice of a beneficent federal government built by their predecessors from the New Deal to the Great Society to Obamacare. There’s a good chance a decisive majority of the general public will eventually recoil from the misrule of the Trump administration and its supine allies in Congress and across the country. But at this point, elected Democrats are going to have to prove they should be trusted to lead the opposition.
Speaking for the Illinois 10th, first term Congressman Mark Kirk would be the poster boy for Moderate Republicans. His equally centrist Democratic opponent 2 years ago, made them almost politically indistinguishable, in a close, but issues driven election.
This district is home to the affluent North Shore suburbs bordering Chicago, a natural constituent (and home to many employees) of the Chicago Tribune. Although the scandal torn state GOP is still under the ‘silent partner’ control of the Conservative wing – which solely can dictate the slating of Republican candidates – it is highly doubtful they would attempt to knock off Kirk in a primary, for obvious reasons.
Which poses a daunting dilemma for Democrats. They would be helped first, if they could possibly link Kirk in some way to the fringe element of the GOP, which is doubtful. Even if Kirk continues to support the Iraq Invasion, it is still not a liability. Because, many of these moneyed, Rockefeller Republicans held their noses and voted for Bush.
Which forces Dems to field a candidate with the gravitas of a Rahm Emmanuel, or dare I say, a Barack Obama.
By 2006, accountability will hopefully have caught up with the Bush administration, and some moderate Republicans may choose to insure he does no further damage by booting a likable sycophant.
History is important, but only to help learn what is needed to change the outcome the next time.
What you did in 2002 really isn’t that relevant if you want to win. Develop a new game plan. And start now to do what’s needed to win. I’m in MA and we’ve got a totally DEM Congressional delegation which is not at-risk for the foreseeable future. I’ve got the interest, motivation, and some resources, to direct toward turning Red House Districts Blue.
There must be hundreds of thousands of folks in the same situation. Mobilize them by turning each race into an Internet Drama.
I hate to say this, but the kind of thinking that you displayed in your post is what’s going to keep the DEMs in permanent minority status.
Stop playing Washington’s game and create a battle plan which can win in Iowa.
Iowa 1 and 2 will be in play only if the incumbents vacate the seats. Jim Nussle, House Budget Subcommittee chairman, is unbeatable–we took a shot at him in 2002, but didn’t even come close. He can bring home too much to the district, and he has a lot of support in the Dubuque area, where Dems would have to do well to win.
If Nussle leaves the House to run for Iowa governor in 2006, however, we would have a shot at that seat with the right candidate.
Iowa 2 is occupied by Jim Leach, one of the most liberal Republicans in the House (e.g. he has a pretty good environmental record, is pro-choice and voted against the Iraq War resolution). We took a shot at him in 2002 with a great candidate, but fell just short. He even carried the “People’s Republic of Johnson County,” home of Iowa City and the state’s most liberal voters. There are too many people who don’t understand that a vote for Leach is a vote for Tom DeLay running the House.
If Leach retires, this seat is very winnable–in fact, Dems would be favored given the way it is currently drawn. Otherwise, it will continue to be a heartbreaker.
It would be great to pick up one or both of these seats by 2010, because Iowa will lose a House seat and we need incumbents to have a prayer of winning one of the remaining four districts in the state.