Eighteen months ago, the Pew Survey for People and the Press released a
"political typology" that analyzed the way values shape the two major party coalitions. The key finding of this enormous survey was views on national security and the use of military overseas was by far the greatest division between members of the two coalitions. This division was so great that people who self-identify as conservative Democrats were far more likely to agree with self-identified liberal Democrats on issues of national security and the use of the military overseas than they were with self-identifying Republicans of any kind: conservative, moderate or liberal. The same went for self-identifying moderate liberal Republicans, who were far more likely to agree with conservative Republicans on issues of national security than they were with self-identifying Democrats of any kind: conservative moderate or liberal. As you can see from the chart on the right, there were other differences between the two coalitions, but compared to national security and the use of the military, all other differences were relatively minor.
The conclusion I drew from this data, along with other data consistently showing that Iraq was consistently the number one issue on the mind of the nation, was that Democrats could make large gains in this election if the public mood soured on Iraq, and if Democratic leaders had the guts to run a campaign that clearly differentiated themselves from Republicans on Iraq. This is why, in October of 2005, with support for the Iraq war bottoming out, I posted an angry rant on Rahm Emmanuel for laying out the 2006 Democratic agenda, and
never once mentioning Iraq:
Again, no mention of Iraq. This is despite the fact that recent polling has repeatedly shown that the number one difference between rank and file Democrats and rank and file Republicans is, in general,
differing views on national security policy and the use of military force and, in particular,
the decision to go to war in Iraq. This is despite the fact that back in May, during
the first vote on withdrawal in the House, Republicans voted 98% against and over 60% of Democrats voted in favor. And that was in May.
So, it would appear that the DCCC wants to sweep the number one issue that separates Democrats from Republicans under the rug. This issue also happens to be the number one issue in the country. And oh yeah--it is an issue on which
the majority Democratic position has overwhelming national support, including
a near majority among Republicans.
But hey, let's not run on said issue. In fact, let's not even mention it. Let's take it off the table, because that worked really well in 2002. Let's brag, like Schumer did in 2002, that Bush was winking at us during his speech when he was stating his case for war--a war which DSCC head Schumer voted for--rather than arguing that said speech and said war was based upon lies. Let's not talk about Iraq, because we are Democrats, and we don't want to win, and we don't want to address the important issues of the day, and we don't have the guts to stand up and support what the vast majority of our caucus, our rank-and-file, and our entire nation supports.
Now, despite what I implied recently, Emmanuel and Schumer still don't get this. Even after the Connecticut primary, they claimed Lamont's victory wasn't about the war.
Emmanuel:
"This shows what blind loyalty to George Bush and being his love child means. [...] This is not about the war. It's blind loyalty to Bush."
Schumer:
Joe Lieberman has been an effective Democratic Senator for Connecticut and for America. But the perception was that he was too close to George Bush and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the President more than anything else. The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction."
However, while some of our most visible leaders did not understand the basic underlying dynamic at play, enough of our insider "leaders" did get it that we ended up running on Iraq this election anyway:
Looking at the latest political insiders poll, there is some indication that what we wrote seeped in to a number of Democratic campaigns and leading party officials. Look at this:
What issue will most motivate your party's base
in the midterm elections?
Democrats:
War in Iraq: 42%
President Bush: 41%
Iraq and Bush: 8%
Other: 7%
What issue will most discourage your base in the midterm elections?
Timidity in opposing the war in Iraq: 33%
Lack of a national message: 32%
Fatalism about Democratic prospects: 15%
Nothing: 21%
While it is depressing that half of Democratic insiders still don't understand the basic difference that truly divides the nation--a difference that the vast majority of Americans implicitly understand without any instruction--it isn't all that surprising. If Democratic insiders and leaders were effective at understand the American people, we wouldn't be on such a losing streak when it came to national elections. However, that half of the insider leaders in the above poll have finally come to understand that basic difference is encouraging. Whether they were able to come to this conclusion on their own, or through object lessons such as the Connecticut Senate primary does not really matter. The important thing is that they finally get it, while Emmanuel and Schumer still don't.
Because half of our leaders actually got it, in 2006 we were able to run a campaign based largely on Iraq. Since the major separation between the two parties derives from differing beliefs on national security and the use of the military, and because the country has shifted dramatically on those fronts over the past eighteen months, Democrats as a whole were able to surge in national polls. Making this contrast and exploiting this difference has been the primary cause, bar none, for the dramatic rise in Democratic electoral prospects this cycle. Actual Democratic leaders, such as progressive Russ Feingold and conservative Jack Murtha, were the prime movers in making this happen. They stuck their necks out in 2005 and pointed out this difference when Schumer and Emmanuel were still avoiding talking about Iraq at all costs.
Lest you think what I am identifying as an ideological shift on the use of force as actually just a case specific shift when it comes to Iraq,
look at the latest numbers on support for the war in Afghanistan:
CNN Poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation. Sept. 22-24, 2006. N=1,009 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.
"Do you favor or oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan?"
Favor: 50%
Oppose: 48%
This is a war that once had 90% support. Opposing this war led to no end of attacks against MoveOn.org, and against candidates who were supported by MoveOn.org. Now the country is evenly divided on freaking Afghanistan. And it goes on from there. According to multiple recent polls, only around 20% of the country is willing to use ground troops against Iran to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, even though preventing Saddam Hussein from getting nuclear weapons was one of the main justifications that the country bought into when originally supporting the war against Iraq. Look at this:
Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Oct. 19-20, 2006. N=1,000 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.
"Please tell me whether or not you would support the following kinds of U.S. military action against Iran if that country continues its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. What about . . . ?"
Air strikes against military targets and suspected nuclear sites in Iran
Would Support: 38%--54% Would not support
Sending in U.S. ground troops to take control of the country
Would support: 18%--76% Would not support
Now compare this to three and a half years ago:
ABC News/Washington Post Poll. June 18-22, 2003. N=1,024 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. Fieldwork by TNS Intersearch.
"Thinking about another country in the region, would you support or oppose the United States taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons?"
Support 56%--38% Oppose
That is a dramatic fall-off.
The numbers in support of war with North Korea are even lower than the numbers in support of war with Iran. The difference, three and a half years later, is that a specific use of military force, Iraq, has changed the public's values on the use of military force in general.
The country has changed its mind on the use of military force and other matter relating to national security. Since this was the primary ideological difference between the two coalitions after the last election, it should not in any way come as a surprise that this shift in ideology has resulted in a corresponding shift in the electoral fortunes of the two coalitions. As the country has shifted toward the Democratic position on the use of military force, they have also shifted toward Democrats. As Pew makes clear, this is not necessarily the conservative position, the moderate position, the liberal position, or the any abstract ideological position--this is the Democratic position. This is what separates Democrats from Republicans in the contemporary era. And, as more people took up that position, Democrats just kept moving high and higher in the polls.
It still took an improved political apparatus, derived primarily from the netroots and the Democracy Alliance nexus, to get us in this position. It still took leaders like Jack Murtha, Ned Lamont, Russ Feingold to help force more Democratic leaders to see the truth. It still took a grassroots and netroots base willing to support those leaders, while other Democrats scurried like rats in the light, in order to make their leadership stances worth taking. But ultimately, in the end, what will swing this election will be changing views on the use of military force brought on by the debacle in Iraq.
I suppose it is theoretically possible that a long-term realignment could have occurred in favor of Republicans had the Iraq war gone really well, but I was always in the camp that it could never go well. Even if you had far ore planning, brought in many more allies, hadn't lied about the reasons to go to war, not disbanded the Iraqi army, not used Iraq as a testing ground for arch-capitalized, completely privatized distopia, given Iraqis more of a say in their own destiny, not rewarded conservative cronies with leadership positions and fat, no-bid contracts, and had the courage to perform actual oversight, even then I believe Iraq would still be a total clusterfuck. The problem, fundamentally, is that Iraqis don't want us in Iraq, and Iraq as a whole is not exactly the world's most unified, post-colonial nation. American cultural supremacists at the Project for the New American Century never understood this, and thought that everyone would always welcome Americans, even if we were pointing a gun at them when we showed up.
As a final note, if people are looking or a single hero to rally around in the Democratic resurgence, I think the clear answer is Howard Dean. It was Howard Dean who was the first Democratic leaders ready to rally the grassroots would opposed the war. It was Howard Dean who rallied and gave belief to the netroots that have since supplied the decisive infrastructure improvements for the progressive netroots. It was Howard Dean who urged the rise of the fifty-state strategy, the silent revolution, the small-donor explosion, the rebirth of Democratic volunteer activism, standing up on Iraq, a politics of contrast, and the rise of progressive media in the form of the blogosphere. All of those things which many Democrats now take for granted came primarily form Howard Dean's Presidential campaign. Basically, every non-Democracy Alliance improvement since 2002 came from Howard Dena and his netroots followers. A Democratic victory in 2006 will be the ultimate coming to fruition of the rise of the Dean movement back in early 2003. Even when Dean's bid for the Presidency failed, the movement never stopped. When people write articles and blog posts and book about how Democrats came back to life in 2005-2006, they should look back to 2003 and once again figure out what happened in Howard Dean's Presidential campaign. That is where all of this started, even if it took longer than we wanted to pull off our first major victory. It turns out that we did have the power after all. We just had to keep plugging away.
