Democrats need plan for victory

EARLY SEPTEMBER IS always a strange time in the American election cycle.

As Madison Avenue marketing executives know, and former Bush Administration Chief-of-Staff Andy Card is reputed to have said about the push to war in Iraq, “You don’t roll out a new product before Labor Day.”

We’re past Labor Day, but it’s not clear that either party has rolled out its new products yet — but this week might change that.

Today, after all, is Sept. 11, the anniversary of the biggest terrorist attack in United States history — and, some believe, the day that has kept the Republican Party in power for the five years since.

There can be no doubt that Sept. 11 will form the framework of the GOP’s election plans.

I expect to see orchestrated photo opportunities in coming days with families of Sept. 11 victims

denouncing members of the opposition party that have criticized the war in Iraq — as if America’s current adventure in the Middle East is somehow related to the murder of their loved ones by Islamic extremists unconnected to Saddam Hussein’s government.

If you’re in the camp that still believes that Hussein’s Iraq was a supporter of terrorism, I’d direct you to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s official report on pre-war intelligence, released last Friday.

Among other choice nuggets, the 400-page report states that, “Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaida to provide material or operational support.”

The truly delightful thing about the Intelligence Committee’s report is that it has received remarkably little news coverage since its release — at least here in the United States.

Despite what many Democrats may be hoping, such revelations will not give them control of either house of Congress this year — and a failure to effectively respond to criticism from Republicans on national security issues could be devastating in close House and Senate races.

Take, for example, Donald Rumsfeld’s recent speech comparing Islamic extremists to the fascists of the 1930s and, at least implicitly, those who oppose the war in Iraq to Nazi sympathizers.

This comparison is clearly ludicrous — yet I still haven’t heard a coordinated response from the Democratic bench.

Perhaps the problem for Democrats is that they really don’t know what they think about the war — and what they should do about it.

Left-wing activists and bloggers would like the party to take a hard-line approach of demanding immediate or near-immediate withdrawal from the conflict.

More centrist (and ambitious) Democrats like Hillary Clinton seem to have adopted a position of waiting and seeing before committing to anything that resembles a policy position. Compare this mistake to John Kerry’s “flip-flops” on the war from the 2004 presidential campaign — a campaign that he should have won given the Administration’s problems and general unpopularity.

It was largely Kerry’s inability to clearly articulate his beliefs on the Iraq war that drove voters to stick with what they knew — the Bush Administration — rather than taking a chance Democratic leadership.

Herein lies the problem for Democrats.

Voters, especially those in “swing states,” will have trouble voting for candidates again this year that cannot articulate a consistent position on one of the biggest issues facing the country today.

Perhaps the best news for Democrats this year is that the old adage put forward by former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill hold true.

“All politics is local,” O’Neill said, referring to the tendency of voters to choose candidates in local and House races that address issues of local importance rather than grand, national agendas.

If the Democrats want victory this November they’d do well to remember that — and ensure that their candidates take positions that appeal to local constituencies.

But at the same time they need to enforce a certain degree of party discipline if they hope to survive the onslaught of Republican criticism and negative campaigning that we’re likely to see rear its head this week.

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