By E. Thomas McClanahanKRT Campus
Many Democrats have adopted a mode of thinking that seems almostreactionary: Whatever Bush is for, they’re against, a tendency thatrecalls the Roosevelt-hating Republicans of 1941.
I can’t recall a time when the prospects for the Democratic Partylooked bleaker than they do today. Of course, this is an eccentricview in some quarters. The media-pack version of reality still seesthe nation as evenly divided.
Indeed, last week’s Washington Post poll found the electoratedeeply polarized. The United States, the paper concluded, “is onceagain a 50-50 nation, shaped by partisan divisions as deep as everthat stand between President Bush and re-election.”
Polls, however, are snapshots and over the next few months thispicture will likely change dramatically as the economy continues toimprove.
In the same week The Washington Post poll was conducted, thegovernment reported that the economy expanded by an annualized 7.2percent in the third quarter, a stunning leap ahead.
Friday brought even more good news. The unemployment rate inOctober dropped to 6 percent. The economy, responding to tax cuts andlow interest rates, created nearly 300,000 jobs in the last threemonths.
Admittedly, the election is a long way off, and a major terroriststrike, a White House scandal or some other unforeseen event couldscramble the political equation. But the two big issues in thepresidential race will be the economy and Iraq and from theDemocrats’ point of view, the most important – the economy – israpidly losing its political potency.
If economic growth continues at a steady clip, all the carpingabout “tax cuts for the rich” will sound like yesterday’snit-picking. A political platform based on wealth-envy has never beena winner in American politics. Neither is a platform calling for taxincreases, which is what Democrats seek when they advocate rollingback a portion or all of Bush’s tax cuts.
On Iraq, the Democrats have a better opportunity. Our troops arefacing an increasingly vicious insurgency. Yes, it’s like Vietnam inthat the linchpin is American public opinion. But it’s unlike Vietnamin almost every other key respect. The guerillas in Vietnamfrequently operated in combination with large conventional militaryunits and their cause had great-power support from China and theSoviet Union. Neither of these conditions applies in Iraq.
But if the security situation in Iraq is still unraveling by nextspring, voters will be open to alternative strategies for rolling upthe insurgency and stabilizing the country.
One group of Democratic thinkers has put together a provocativemanifesto called “Progressive Internationalism: A Democratic NationalSecurity Strategy” that faults Bush for being insufficiently hawkish.These Democrats call for “the bold exercise of American power” and amore aggressive stance toward Iran and North Korea.
But voters probably won’t get a choice between Bush’s approach anda tougher stance. Polls indicate that core Democratic primary votersput a low priority on homeland security and fighting terrorism. Theconversation on the campaign trail is less focused on how to win inIraq than on how we got there and the failure to get help from othercountries – arguments about the past. Elections are about the future.
Planting an Arab democracy in the Middle East – in the heart ofthe seedbed of terrorism – would be a tremendous achievement on bothhumanitarian and national-security grounds. Even some U.S. critics inthe Arab world have begun rethinking their earlier opposition to thewar.
“Is it too early to adopt a revisionist view of the U.S. war inIraq and for this column to admit its mistake in having vehementlyopposed it from the outset?” columnist Fawaz Turki wrote last week inArab News (www.arabnews.com), an English-language paper based inJeddah, Saudi Arabia. “I’m convinced – and berate me here from yourpatriotic bleachers, if you must – that what we have seen in the landbetween the Tigris and the Euphrates in recent months may turn out tobe the most serendipitous event in its modern history.”
A door is opening in the Arab world, one closed for centuries. Yetamong the nine Democrats seeking our nation’s highest office, thereisn’t a single candidate who seems equal to the challenge – andopportunity – presented by this moment in history.
– E. Thomas McClanahan is a member of the Kansas City Stareditorial board.
– This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of TheDaily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com.Anonymous letters will not be printed – include your full name, majorand year in school.
