Election Thoughts
Yesterday was a great day for American democracy. Not because I’m naïve enough to think that the Democrats are fundamentally better people than Republicans, but because political competition and conflict form the stick to keep government in line (re-election being the carrot). Both have been notoriously lacking for the past six years.
Listening to Bush’s press conference yesterday morning, I heard some interesting things. For one, Bush wasn’t just making empty promises of bi-partisanship that were understood to be valid only so long as the opposition agreed to do his biding. He was actually offering congratulations to Democrats—the first tentative steps towards rebuilding bridges burnt long ago. Not to say that he won’t renege, but it was good to see.
Second, Bush uttered a phrase which, although I may be wrong, I believe has been completely alien to all of the President’s prior rhetoric: “the lack of progress in Iraq.” Was this not the man who until quite recently was insisting that we were winning Iraq? President Bush’s denial of the reality so apparent to the rest of us, in Iraq as well as elsewhere, is what has disturbed me most about his tenure. So this, too, is a promising development.
To back this up, he has removed the most (or perhaps second-most, after Cheney) obstinate man in Washington, Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld’s leadership has been marked by a complete inability to acknowledge failures, an apparent unwillingness to learn from mistakes, and an ideological disrespect for dissenters.
What we may now be seeing is the re-birth of a new Bush administration, one more responsive to the public and more willing to compromise (if only because it has no choice). The Republican majority that in 2004 seemed impermeable (I heard conservative friends speak, smiling wistfully, of the “enduring Republican majority”) is now in shambles; the President and his crew botched policy so badly over the last two years that on Tuesday local Republicans across the country paid the ultimate political price. National issues dominated this election, as every pundit in the country has pointed out, and Bush lost this one for his team.
What is left for Bush and Rove in their remaining two years is to try to make amends, to rebuild the party to a place where it can compete for the Presidency in 2008 against a Democratic strategy of demanding change. In this election it did not matter much what form that change took—the Democrats did not put forward a cohesive vision for America prior to this election, they simply had to emphasize that they were not Republicans. President Bush’s job is to make sure that the same strategy does not work two years from now. He’ll do that only by beginning change now, and by forcing Democrats to take some responsibility for the direction this country is taking.
Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats must recognize that the strategy of being not Republican (or, as Jon Stewart put it, of slowly backing out of the room while your brother is yelled at for burning down the garage) probably won’t suffice in 2008, and need to come up with something a bit stronger to run on. Pelosi is just the firebrand that the Democrats need to push them into taking some risks. If the Democrats want to become anything other than the impotent party they have been for six years, they’ll have to start some actual leading, and the changes they make will need to make a good impression. If they can point to positive results in two years, and if they can put forward a solid candidate with charisma and a base broader than Massachusetts, they can take back the White House. If they fail to do either, they won’t.
Listening to Bush’s press conference yesterday morning, I heard some interesting things. For one, Bush wasn’t just making empty promises of bi-partisanship that were understood to be valid only so long as the opposition agreed to do his biding. He was actually offering congratulations to Democrats—the first tentative steps towards rebuilding bridges burnt long ago. Not to say that he won’t renege, but it was good to see.
Second, Bush uttered a phrase which, although I may be wrong, I believe has been completely alien to all of the President’s prior rhetoric: “the lack of progress in Iraq.” Was this not the man who until quite recently was insisting that we were winning Iraq? President Bush’s denial of the reality so apparent to the rest of us, in Iraq as well as elsewhere, is what has disturbed me most about his tenure. So this, too, is a promising development.
To back this up, he has removed the most (or perhaps second-most, after Cheney) obstinate man in Washington, Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld’s leadership has been marked by a complete inability to acknowledge failures, an apparent unwillingness to learn from mistakes, and an ideological disrespect for dissenters.
What we may now be seeing is the re-birth of a new Bush administration, one more responsive to the public and more willing to compromise (if only because it has no choice). The Republican majority that in 2004 seemed impermeable (I heard conservative friends speak, smiling wistfully, of the “enduring Republican majority”) is now in shambles; the President and his crew botched policy so badly over the last two years that on Tuesday local Republicans across the country paid the ultimate political price. National issues dominated this election, as every pundit in the country has pointed out, and Bush lost this one for his team.
What is left for Bush and Rove in their remaining two years is to try to make amends, to rebuild the party to a place where it can compete for the Presidency in 2008 against a Democratic strategy of demanding change. In this election it did not matter much what form that change took—the Democrats did not put forward a cohesive vision for America prior to this election, they simply had to emphasize that they were not Republicans. President Bush’s job is to make sure that the same strategy does not work two years from now. He’ll do that only by beginning change now, and by forcing Democrats to take some responsibility for the direction this country is taking.
Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats must recognize that the strategy of being not Republican (or, as Jon Stewart put it, of slowly backing out of the room while your brother is yelled at for burning down the garage) probably won’t suffice in 2008, and need to come up with something a bit stronger to run on. Pelosi is just the firebrand that the Democrats need to push them into taking some risks. If the Democrats want to become anything other than the impotent party they have been for six years, they’ll have to start some actual leading, and the changes they make will need to make a good impression. If they can point to positive results in two years, and if they can put forward a solid candidate with charisma and a base broader than Massachusetts, they can take back the White House. If they fail to do either, they won’t.
posted by Nate at 12:48 AM
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