Five weeks ago, when Senator Feingold introduced his resolution to censure President Bush, the pundit class universally agreed with the official White House talking point that Feingold had introduced the resolution for political reasons relating to 2008. Polls quickly came out that supposedly showed the public agreeing that Senator Feingold's move was for political advantage, rather than because he actually believed in what he was doing. Fro example,
look at the ABC News Poll on the subject
ABC News/Washington Post Poll. April 6-9, 2006. N=1,027 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. Fieldwork by TNS.
"Do you think Feingold is calling for censuring Bush mainly to use the issue for political advantage, or mainly because he believes it is the right thing to do?"
Political advantage: 56%
Right Thing to do: 35%
Both: 4%
Unsure 4%
:
The most amazing thing about these polls was that 95% of the country suddenly had an opinion about the mental motivations of a man with
33% national name recognition. Of course the two-thirds of the public who had never heard of Feingold was going to think that his motivations were political. First, the pundits all told them that his motivations were political. Second the public assumes that the motivations of every politician they have never heard of are political. Any poll asking this sort of question should have restricted itself to people who actually know who senator Feingold is. I bet that would have skewed a lot more toward the "right thing to do" answer.
Apart from the ramifications this incident had, and will continue to have, on the national media narrative surrounding Senator Feingold, perhaps the most important revelation of the censure battle was just how little almost everyone in Washington thinks the progressive base matters. When Bush does something for his conservative base, according to established news outlets he does it because he believes in whatever he is doing. When a Democrat does something that will appeal to the progressive base, well, that has to be for political purposes. Of course, even among Democrats in the Senate, who almost universally agreed that Feingold was acting for his own benefit, very few of them signed on to Feingold's censure resolution in order to reap that supposed benefit themselves. As far as I know, only Boxer, Harkin, and Leahy made public statements in support of the resolution, and they all deserve credit for doing so. Menendez and Kerry made some noise about it, but to date I do not think they have actually followed through.
Given this, my question to the remaining Democratic Senators is as follows. If you think that Senator Feingold was acting in order to gain favor and political benefit within the progressive base, then why didn't you sign on to his resolution in order to gain that same favor and benefit? The answer, as far as I can tell, must be that most Democrats in Washington do not view the support of the Democratic, progressive base as actually carrying with it much benefit at all. To them, the progressive base apparently does not matter, and does not wield political power of any value. The constant refrain,
no matter how far ahead we are among independents, is that we must continue to target independents always, and independents only. It is
a frustrating, overly simplistic, and linear view of politics.
In this environment, I think it is important to point out that Senator Feingold's leadership on a wide variety of issues of late has actually dramatically improved his potential 2008 outlook. The progressive base has power, and can move polls. To date, Republican polling firm
Strategic Vision is the only polling outfit to conduct enough polls on primary states in order to develop trendlines (although right now to get the trendliens oyu need to be a subscriber to
Polling Report). Compare Feingold's results in several states before the Patriot Act fight began to heat up, and after his introduction of the censure resolution:
NJ, 4/14/06 (10/30/05)
Clinton 35% (40%)
Gore 15% (12%)
Edwards 10% (8%)
Kerry 9% (10%)
Feingold 6% (1%)
PA, 4/13/06 (10/05)
Clinton 34% (42%)
Gore 15% (12%)
Edwards 12% (5%)
Feingold 8% (2%)
Kerry 6% (11%)
WI, 4/12/05 (10/19/05)
Clinton 31% (34%)
Feingold 29% (15%)
Gore 11% (20%)
Edwards 8% (5%)
Kerry 4% (5%)
WA, 3/26/06 (10/25/05)
Clinton 35% (36%)
Gore 15% (10%)
Edwards 11% (9%)
Feingold 9% (4%)
Kerry 7% (12%)
FL, 3/30/25 (9/20/05)
Clinton 35% (39%)
Gore 18% (12%)
Edwards 12% (6%)
Warner 6% (1%)
Kerry 6% (13%)
Feingold 4% (1%)
In all five states with post-censure resolution polls, the trendline is clearly up for Feingold. Compared to Clinton, he has gained ten points in New Jersey, fourteen points in Pennsylvania, seventeen points in Wisconsin, six points in Washington, and seven points in Florida. Outside of Feingold's home state of Wisconsin, a similar trend can be found for Gore, who has gained a new reputation for
his tough speeches against the Bush administration ever since 2002.
I write this not simply to chastise many Democratic leaders and potential 2008 candidates for failing to speak to the base and to pump of the image of Democrats who do speak to the base. Rather, I wish to show
all Democratic leaders that there is benefit to be gained from listening to and communicating with the progressive base. To date, Feingold's rise in popularity and 2008 prospects has been significantly fueled by his willingness to treat progressive Democrats as Americans who are actually worth listening to. This willingness is all too rare among federally elected Democrats, and among our committee leadership. However, it has given Feingold to ability to actually know what the progressive activist base wants, to understand the language they use, and then to serve as a leader in a manner the progressive activist base approves of. And, yes, serving as a leader for a group of highly active and engaged people who are generally not listened to or taken seriously even by large segments of the leadership of their own party carries with it real political benefits. That should not be a surprise to anyone, but unfortunately, as we saw first with Dean's rise in 2003, it remains a surprise to many.
We need to continue supporting leading voices for progressive activists like Feingold, Boxer and Dean. All Democratic leaders need to believe that the progressive activist base is worth listening to, that it contains real political power. Just as importantly, even after they believe this, they need to learn how to speak and act in a way that resonates with the base in a positive way. For example, Kerry has recently started reaching out to the activist base, but to date it has not yet had the same positive impact for him (although, obviously, there are other issues at play when it comes to Kerry). The need I goal describing here was articled last month by
EJ Dionne in an important column:
Here's the problem: Feingold and the activists are right that Democrats can't just take a pass on the wiretapping issue, because Bush's legal claims are so suspect -- even to many in his own party. The opposition's job is to raise alarms over potential abuses of presidential power.
But Democrats, unlike Republicans, have yet to develop a healthy relationship between activists willing to test and expand the conventional limits on political debate and the politicians who have to calculate what works in creating an electoral majority.
For two decades, Republicans have used their idealists, their ideologues and their loudmouths to push the boundaries of discussion to the right. In the best of all worlds, Feingold's strong stand would redefine what's "moderate" and make clear that those challenging the legality of the wiretapping are neither extreme nor soft on terrorism.
That would demand coordination, trust and, yes, calculation involving both the vote-counting politicians and the guardians of principle among the activists. Republicans have mastered this art. Democrats haven't.
Turning a minority into a majority requires both passion and discipline. Bringing the two together requires effective leadership. Does anybody out there know how to play this game?
As long as
the activist class war continues unabated without any reconciliation or increased understanding among the antagonistic parties, the national debate will continue to shift to the right, the Democratic electoral machine will continue to be dysfunctional, and we will never forge a natural governing majority. Some leaders, such as Russ Feingold, have begun to take the positive steps of actually listening to the progressive activist base. More need to do the same. Unless the Democratic Party leadership accepts that the progressive activist base has something important to offer, and that they are Americans worth listening to, except for a few flickers of hope here and there, we will remain stuck in the mud for a long time. The war is probably not going to end anytime soon, but we at least need to open up talks.
