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Thursday, August 31, 2006
All is not sweetness and light in Rahm-world
Time Magazine has a delicious look at the tensions between Rahm Emanuel and Howard Dean and the whole netroots world. Emanuel is ticked at Moveon.org and George Soros for not contributing and spending enough money to help the Democrats take back the House.
Noting that MoveOn.org had ran ads in four key congressional races earlier this summer and then stopped, Emanuel told the New York Daily News "they literally moved on. The election is in November, and they moved on in June. 'What is going on here?' I don't get it. I'm bewildered." On Soros, Emanuel said "he says his No. 1 priority is taking back the House. I say, 'Okay, I'm into that. So what are we going to do?.
Both Soros and MoveOn.org sharply defended themselves, with MoveOn Washington director Tom Matzzie telling TIME of Emanuel's remarks that "it's really in poor taste, it shows no class and its not not going to help Democrats get elected."
Well, I'll certainly grant that public griping about one of the party's biggest supporters is indeed in bad taste. Note the sense of entitlement Emanuel shows. Of course, he would deny that the party has become beholden to special interest groups. I guess they're not special interest groups when they support Democrats.
Time goes on to look at the worries that the Democrats have in some specific races that they are not raising enough. They're hoping that the netroots get the message and pony up now.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are still fussing at each other over what their message should be. They've turned to marketing and linguistic gurus to help them phrase what it is they truly believe.
The opening line of the Democrats' agenda "Congressional Democrats believe America should work for everyone, not just those at the top" is a message Trout promoted constantly in conference calls and in meetings, while Democrats picked six issues, rather than five or seven, at the urging of software entrepreneur John Cullinane, who has been consulting with House Democrats since 2004. ("Seven too many, five is too few" he says)
How's that for a message: We believe in six things because we know that seven is too many and five is too few.
And, of course, they're still waffling on what their position is on Iraq.
Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who is considering a 2008 presidential run, was even less impressed. He called the Democrats proposal on Iraq, which asks President Bush to start withdrawing troops from Iraq this year, "weak tea." In a meeting with TIME reporters earlier this month, Feingold said "running out the clock, this is so much what the Democrats are trying to do. They're going to play it safe." He called for a much bolder agenda from the party, including a universal health care plan, full withdrawal of troops from Iraq this year and a commitment to stop any attempt to ban gay marriage. In fact, Democrats wouldn't have to look too far for some bolder ideas. Emanuel, along with another former Clinton White House adviser, Bruce Reed, just released a book called The Plan that calls for universal national service, requiring that every job come with a 401k plan, and expanding the army by 100,000 troops.
Hmmmm, will the college students who support the Democrats be thrilled with the idea of universal national service? Does Emanuel mean that to be required national service? How else could it be universal? Sort of like the Hillary's efforts to bring about universal health care by requiring everyone to be in Hillary's government system. And weren't the Democrats the one trying to scare young voters by saying that Republicans had a secret plan to bring back the draft despite all the denials from everyone in the administration?
Meanwhile, many Democrats figure that they don't need a message and can just ride the supposed anti-incumbent wave that is out there.
Democrats say, that like 1994, an anti-incumbency feeling exists all over they country, and they need to keep voters focused on what President Bush and the Republicans have done wrong. So Democrats eschewed a big health care plan, for example, because they worried it would reinforce the Republican critique of Democrats as the "tax and spend" party. "Eighty percent of our message is negative," one party strategist said.
Yup, it's all negative. Vote for us because we're not them. Somehow, I doubt that that will be enough to swing it for them. They might want to rethink that whole anti-incumbency strategy. The newest generic ballot question shows that the GOP has closed the gap and now is statistically tied with the Democrats. Given that the generic question skews Democratic and even the folks at Gallup admit that their polls of registered voters or for the generic ballot consistently overstate five to ten and a half percent for the Democrats, having a generic ballot poll that shows the Democrats only ahead by two has got to be throwing a frisson of nerves into Emanuel's operation. I imagine that he'll have to go begging to George Soros again. And maybe he'll show better taste this time in how he pleads for more money.
posted by Betsy permalink 6:19 AM
[Feingold] called for a much bolder agenda from the party, including a universal health care plan,
Nationalize 1/7 of the GNP,
full withdrawal of troops from Iraq this year
...cut and run,
and a commitment to stop any attempt to ban gay marriage
...and circumvent the will of the voters.
Great plan, Russ - roll with it! I'll go along with his characterization of that agenda as "bold", though - bold in the sense of a Democrat actually saying aloud what Democrats would like to do. Kind of refreshing, in a tragicomic sort of way.
