A constant in politics

As I think I have commented earlier, one of my friends who is an astute political analyst (although he is the guy who argued that the democrats would automatically nominate Jane Harman to the Governorship because she is a woman) has recently argued to me that the democrats will be in control of congress - for "the rest of our lives." I have argued that all political parties have the inherent quality to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Witness the fight about John (pork is my middle name) Murtha as the majority leader.

But in the NYT today, there is a great story about the problems that the democrats are causing for themselves. Contrary to the common notion (Victory has many fathers, defeat is an orphan) a lot in the democrat party are arguing about who actually won the congress for them. James Carville, never one to be slow on the gab uptake, commented a couple of days ago that Howard Dean was ineffective. Two of his quotes stand out. “There was a missed opportunity here,I’ve sat down with Republican pollsters to discuss this race: They believe we left 10 to 20 seats on the table." and " I would describe his (Dean's) leadership as Rumsfeldian in its incompetence.” Carville has never been cautious about his own ego, so his comments are not surprising. But there seems to be a legitimate discussion about whether Dean or the state leaders were the lynchpin in making things happen for the dems in this election.

A democrat leader from South Carolina commented in the same article “Asking Dean to step down now, after last week, is equivalent to asking Eisenhower to resign after the Normandy invasion,” Donald Fowler of the South Carolina democrats said. “It’s just nonsense."

Elections are about mobilizing one's base and encouraging those close to your base to believe they are also a part of that. Undeniably, despite the almost reverential homage paid to Karl Rove by some, the dems did a better job in accomplishing that. What encourages me is that at this time in American politics all coalitions are fragile and unstable. The American people seem to be turned off by both parties writ large. But in this election they were less turned off by the dems - and that is fine. Those who were applauded for their brilliance in 2004 are now being looked at with differing eyes. One would only hope that self promoters like Carville would be less visible in the future. But then that is too much to hope for.

The long term values of the American people are somewhere in between the big government left and the big government right. Whoever realizes that will have the chance to capture the majority for a very long time. At this point, I am not ready to concede that either side has found that fairly simple Rosetta stone of politics.