Forget about the Dems. On the eve of the Inauguration, Democrats are far more united than the Republicans, despite GOP’s showy display of victory.
Excerpts from:
Passionate Opposition
Despite another loss in 2004, progressive Democrats like Ted Kennedy remain optimistic, as the GOP fractures over Social Security reform and President Bush’s ambitious domestic agenda
By Eleanor Cliff
Newsweek
[A] reporter asked if [Sen. Ted Kennedy] was “in denial” over the Democrats losing another congressional election.
“We’re not talking about 1994,” he said. Back then, Democrats were so disheartened at losing the House and Senate that party donors pulled back. Kennedy recalled spending six hours at a fund-raiser in Miami and raising only $1,600. The dynamics are completely different this time, he said.
“You have a disaster of unimaginable proportions going on in Iraq and you have a quivering dollar” that our creditors in China could send into a nosedive, Kennedy said. It’s a political hand that should test any politician.
A Pew Research Center poll shows that Bush begins his second term considerably less popular than other recent second-term presidents and that his domestic agenda is at odds with the public’s priorities. Americans want health care addressed, and while they’re open to the idea of private investment accounts for Social Security, they think it’s more important to preserve the guaranteed monthly benefit that is the core of the system.
With Social Security reform shaping up to be the defining battle, forget about the Democrats. In the Republican Party you’ve got one faction saying no tax increases, another saying no benefit cuts, a third saying any transition to private accounts has to be paid for and a fourth saying let’s call the whole thing off, it’s too hard. “Not only does he have to worry about a foreign-policy quagmire but a domestic one, as well,” says Marshall Wittmann, a policy analyst at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.
Almost every day some Republican raises his or her head above the parapet to take on Bush’s policies. U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donahue, usually a reliable cheerleader for the White House, says tax reform is a steep hill he’d rather not climb, and he’s noncommittal on overhauling Social Security. Bill Kristol, one of the GOP’s preeminent thinkers, likens Bush’s approach on Social Security to the Clinton overreach on health care, which paralyzed the White House for 20 long months.
On the eve of the Inauguration, Democrats are far more united than the Republicans, despite the GOP’s showy display of victory. Not all wings of the party would call Iraq Bush’s Vietnam, as Kennedy does. But Kennedy’s passion for opposing Bush reflects what Democrats feel whether they’re right, left or center. . . . “I used to be an old friend,” he said, recalling how Bush once courted him. Bush will need lots of new friends to pull off his domestic agenda.
Passionate Opposition
Despite another loss in 2004, progressive Democrats like Ted Kennedy remain optimistic, as the GOP fractures over Social Security reform and President Bush’s ambitious domestic agenda
By Eleanor Cliff
Newsweek
[A] reporter asked if [Sen. Ted Kennedy] was “in denial” over the Democrats losing another congressional election.
“We’re not talking about 1994,” he said. Back then, Democrats were so disheartened at losing the House and Senate that party donors pulled back. Kennedy recalled spending six hours at a fund-raiser in Miami and raising only $1,600. The dynamics are completely different this time, he said.
“You have a disaster of unimaginable proportions going on in Iraq and you have a quivering dollar” that our creditors in China could send into a nosedive, Kennedy said. It’s a political hand that should test any politician.
A Pew Research Center poll shows that Bush begins his second term considerably less popular than other recent second-term presidents and that his domestic agenda is at odds with the public’s priorities. Americans want health care addressed, and while they’re open to the idea of private investment accounts for Social Security, they think it’s more important to preserve the guaranteed monthly benefit that is the core of the system.
With Social Security reform shaping up to be the defining battle, forget about the Democrats. In the Republican Party you’ve got one faction saying no tax increases, another saying no benefit cuts, a third saying any transition to private accounts has to be paid for and a fourth saying let’s call the whole thing off, it’s too hard. “Not only does he have to worry about a foreign-policy quagmire but a domestic one, as well,” says Marshall Wittmann, a policy analyst at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.
Almost every day some Republican raises his or her head above the parapet to take on Bush’s policies. U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donahue, usually a reliable cheerleader for the White House, says tax reform is a steep hill he’d rather not climb, and he’s noncommittal on overhauling Social Security. Bill Kristol, one of the GOP’s preeminent thinkers, likens Bush’s approach on Social Security to the Clinton overreach on health care, which paralyzed the White House for 20 long months.
On the eve of the Inauguration, Democrats are far more united than the Republicans, despite the GOP’s showy display of victory. Not all wings of the party would call Iraq Bush’s Vietnam, as Kennedy does. But Kennedy’s passion for opposing Bush reflects what Democrats feel whether they’re right, left or center. . . . “I used to be an old friend,” he said, recalling how Bush once courted him. Bush will need lots of new friends to pull off his domestic agenda.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 7:03 AM
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