Shoot The Messengers...Or At Least Get New Ones

Democrats need to roll out two things for the 2006 elections: they need a message, and they need a messenger. Here it is, mid-May, and they have yet to present either. Proof once again that rather than exerting themselves to win the mid-term elections, they’re content to sit back and let the Republicans lose.

Does anyone else have real problems with the Democratic Congressional leadership? Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. What a pair! Reid with his stodgy, cranky, whiney style, and Pelosi, who is the embodiment of everything there could possibly be to hate about a woman politician. Hard to believe they were heirs-apparent to the thrones of Tom Daschle and Dick Gephart—Reid as Senate Minority Whip since 1999, and Pelosi as House Minority whip since 2001. Apparently, the Democrats have been making terrible leadership decisions for a long time.

Yes, Reid was next in line when Tom Daschle lost his senate seat in 2004; but he has the look and manner of the kind of conservative old fart that polltakers would have approved. Who were the Democrats to offer voters an obvious alternative to the GOP leadership? “The people like Republican…Let’s give them Republican!” One has to wonder, who the hell are the people they poll in order to make these decisions? Fifteen hundred voting-age residents of Dumb-Ass, USA? And does anyone know what Reid’s message is? Besides planting his feet and balking like a jack-ass at every move Republican senate leaders make? Very publicly? Talk about a poster child for “The Party of No Ideas…”

And then there’s Nancy Pelosi. I suppose her style could be called “Shoot from the hip.” More likely “Open mouth before engaging brain.” She doesn’t harmonize well at all with a national Democratic agenda orchestrated to win the hearts of conservative-leaning swing voters. GOP strategists use her as part of their “politics of fear.” The prospect of a “Bay area liberal” poised to become Speaker of the House, in the event of a Democratic takeover, strikes abject terror into the hearts of the ultra-conservative base. What better way to mobilize the far-right?

Unlike Reid, Pelosi does have a message. Unfortunately. She promises things like immediately raising the minimum wage, and rolling back the provisions of the Bush Medicare drug plan that prevent the government from negotiating prices on prescription drugs. So far, so good. But, let her talk for too long, and she’ll unveil her plans for investigating Bush administration actions dating back to 2000. We need to remember that the voters Democrats are attempting to court might well have voted for Bush in 2004. They may be ready for a change, but they are probably not so disenchanted with the current administration that they’re eager to see it torn down and disgraced. Not that these things don’t look tempting to some of us. But we need the votes. Let’s tell the voters what we’re going to do for them, and plan what we can do to the Administration once we have the votes in the box.

Senate leadership is AWOL, and House leadership is a strategic advantage to the bad guys. We are a body politic without a head, an army without a general, and we expect to be awarded leadership of the free world this November. Given our strategy, methinks our expectations might be a tad over-optimistic.

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