Democrats should heed Daley's steer-to-the-center advice
David Broder of The Washington Post writes today about the subject of my 12-26-09 post entitled "Chm. of Gore 2000 campaign warns: Plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster (read: reclaim the center & keep the Big Tent big:"
On the day before Christmas, President Obama found two presents under his tree. One was the health-care reform bill passed that morning by the Senate, a historic measure so freighted with promise and problems that it could blow up.
The other was an op-ed in The Post by William Daley, his fellow Chicagoan and one of the canniest Democrats I know, warning Obama that he is on the verge of losing his hold on the vital center of politics.
[T]he thrust of Daley's main argument [and h]is target is the left of his party -- the grass-roots liberal activists who condemn the centrist Democrats sitting in marginal seats for blocking some provisions of health-care reform, for example, and the leaders of organized labor who threaten to retaliate by withholding their support from the moderates.
These groups put heavy pressure on Obama to move his agenda to the left -- even when a Congress with swollen Democratic majorities is balking at the measures that Obama already has endorsed.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's inner circle is made up of long-standing veterans of gerrymandered House districts, virtually immune from Election Day challenge, just as she is. The wants and needs of "the Democratic base" count heavily for them, and Daley's warnings may be resented or ignored.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's home-state party in Nevada is as closely tied to the unions as Michigan used to be in the days of Walter Reuther, and Reid views the world from that perspective.
As a loyal Democrat, Daley insisted in the closing paragraphs of his op-ed that his party is not doomed to ruin. It can still avoid anything more than a minimal setback in 2010, he said, if it will simply "acknowledge that the agenda of the party's most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans -- and, based on that recognition . . . steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan."
I am not so certain. It will be up to Obama to steer the Democrats in that direction. No one on Capitol Hill is likely to lead such a change. The first test will come with the revisions of health care in the House-Senate conference and whether the White House insists on strengthening the cost-saving measures in the bills.
The larger tests will lie in Obama's 2010 State of the Union and budget messages -- whether he fulfills his promise to start addressing the runaway budget deficits left in the wake of the recession. A presidential endorsement of the much-discussed commission empowered to slow the hemorrhage of red ink would signal to voters that Daley's message has been heard.
On the day before Christmas, President Obama found two presents under his tree. One was the health-care reform bill passed that morning by the Senate, a historic measure so freighted with promise and problems that it could blow up.
The other was an op-ed in The Post by William Daley, his fellow Chicagoan and one of the canniest Democrats I know, warning Obama that he is on the verge of losing his hold on the vital center of politics.
[T]he thrust of Daley's main argument [and h]is target is the left of his party -- the grass-roots liberal activists who condemn the centrist Democrats sitting in marginal seats for blocking some provisions of health-care reform, for example, and the leaders of organized labor who threaten to retaliate by withholding their support from the moderates.
These groups put heavy pressure on Obama to move his agenda to the left -- even when a Congress with swollen Democratic majorities is balking at the measures that Obama already has endorsed.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's inner circle is made up of long-standing veterans of gerrymandered House districts, virtually immune from Election Day challenge, just as she is. The wants and needs of "the Democratic base" count heavily for them, and Daley's warnings may be resented or ignored.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's home-state party in Nevada is as closely tied to the unions as Michigan used to be in the days of Walter Reuther, and Reid views the world from that perspective.
As a loyal Democrat, Daley insisted in the closing paragraphs of his op-ed that his party is not doomed to ruin. It can still avoid anything more than a minimal setback in 2010, he said, if it will simply "acknowledge that the agenda of the party's most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans -- and, based on that recognition . . . steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan."
I am not so certain. It will be up to Obama to steer the Democrats in that direction. No one on Capitol Hill is likely to lead such a change. The first test will come with the revisions of health care in the House-Senate conference and whether the White House insists on strengthening the cost-saving measures in the bills.
The larger tests will lie in Obama's 2010 State of the Union and budget messages -- whether he fulfills his promise to start addressing the runaway budget deficits left in the wake of the recession. A presidential endorsement of the much-discussed commission empowered to slow the hemorrhage of red ink would signal to voters that Daley's message has been heard.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 9:54 AM
1 Comments:
As long as the liberals are in positions of power, the democratic party will never veer toward the center. President Obama I believe wants to move to the center, but liberals up there are always in his ear, pulling on his arm telling him he needs to do this or do that. I said this a couple weeks ago, the only way the democratic party nationally moves to the center is to elect a true centrist democrat to the White House. The gentle man is right that the party needs to veer to the center. Thye keeo going down this road of big government, they will pay the price at the polls come in 2010 & 2012. My hope is Tim Kaine, the DNC Chairman would help veer the party more to the center, but as of right now, I haven't seen anything like that yet.
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