In two and a half weeks, Democrats will shift from being a party with virtually no power in Washington D.C., to one that controls the legislative branch. It would be foolish to expect a perfectly smooth shift, since there will inevitably be some bumps in the road as we move to, among other things, setting the legislative agenda from responding to it, to crafting large numbers of bills and away from primarily crafting doomed amendments, and to getting nearly equal media time instead of being virtually ignored. Further, in the House and Senate combined, we will have roughly fifty freshman members, our highest numbers in three decades, which will also mean a hoard of new Democratic staffers. Thousands of lobbyists who were, as of just two months ago, the core funders of the Republican "majority," will suddenly pay a lot of attention (and, they hope, money) to Democrats as well. There is just no way a transition like this can be perfectly smooth.
We will also need to make a transition online. For example, at MyDD, we brought on Nancy Scola because, among other reasons, she has professional experience on the Hill that none of our existing writers have (we are mainly just campaign people). However, the change is not restricted simply to the topics we will focus on, and the people who are writing on those topics. Instead, the change also needs to take place in the focus of our criticism. The latest blogswarm on Harry Reid is a particularly good example of the ways in which we need to transition ourselves. Simply put, our behavior today is not how we should be acting anymore.
During the past four years, Democrats had virtually no ability to impact public policy at the federal level. In that environment, when it came to figuring out the type of public policy Democrats would propose if they were in power, the news junkies and activist Democrats of the netroots and the blogosphere had little else to go on except the public statements Democrats made, and the number of times Democratic members of Congress defected to support Republican trifecta legislation (which, in a sense, were also just public statements, since we rarely had any chance of stopping the legislation in question). In most cases, all we could really hope for was a loud and clear message that we opposed current policy and that we would do things differently. It made perfect sense to demand strong messages from our leaders during those years. We needed to oppose Republican trifecta policy as vehemently and cogently as possible in those circumstances, and we needed to whip Democratic members of Congress when they said something stupid / conservative movement enabling. If all you have is the message, then the message must be protected at all costs.
However, times are about to change. What our leaders say in public will quickly mean quite a bit less than what types of legislation and oversight they propose and conduct. For example, if one of our leaders makes a misstep in an interview on a staid, Sunday morning talk show about Iraq, that means a lot less than what that leader does or does not do to facilitate oversight, and what legislation that leader passes to help actually change course in Iraq. In eighteen days, we will possess quite a bit more than a message, and thus we need a new standard of measurement to which we now must hold our leaders. Compared to our new power, one poorly worded response to a "gotcha" type question on a Sunday talk show is virtually meaningless.
I am not saying that message discipline isn't important. I'm not saying we shouldn't do everything we can both to oppose troop increases in Iraq, but also to make sure that the Democratic Party is loud and clear in its opposition to such increases. What I am saying is that when it comes to holding Democratic leaders accountable, our sticks should no longer be focused on stupid public statements, and they should instead be focused on policy and oversight. I seriously doubt Harry Reid will pursue a course of policy that will lead to troop increases. If he does then
that is when we need to oppose what he is doing as strongly as possible. However, if we instead throw all of our might against one poorly phrased sentence, we won't be able to mount a more serious opposition to a far more serious development. I mean, if we go apoplectic all the friggin' time, we quickly turn the movement into a bunch of little boys crying wolf. It is by the fruits of the new Congress--legislation and oversight--that we shall know the new Congress. Our old standards are virtually useless when held up to the light of our new power.
Now, all that being said, in the future, here is a simple answer to questions concerning support for troop increases: "it is time to start bringing our troops home, not sending more in."
Less than 20% of the country supports increasing troop levels in Iraq. Even leaving aside the issues of bad policy, undermining your own caucus, continued escalation of an immoral war, internal D.C. politics, unfortunate media performances and potential alternative readings of
Reid's statement earlier today, numbers like those should make it clear as day to any Democrat that public statements in support of increased troop levels are a terrible idea, even if conditional and qualified.
