As the Democrats prepare to take over Congress, all Washington is talking about the well-circulated “100 Hours List” of bills that the part has pledged to bring to the floor immediately. The Republicans predictably are crying “foul,” because the measures will not be going through committee, even though they made overriding committees, particularly those with feisty Democrats on them a main tactic ever since Newt Gingrich decided that the way to govern was ride roughshod over the opposition and all the better if it made them mad. Both he and the man known as “the Hammer,” Tom DeLay liked to throw their weight around, which in Newt’s case was considerable. The GOP seemed to relish playing the bully, such as when they tried to evict a group of Democrats caucusing in a House library, even going so far as to call the Capitol police.
It;s tough for any progressive to argue with the list. Most of the measures such as raising the minimum wage and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices have been on the Democrats–and America’s–agenda for years, stalled by the Republican Counterrevolution’s “less government” philosophy. Anyone sympathetic to the Party is being urged to join in the celebration and not cast any cold water on this agenda.
My issue isn’t so much with the list itself as with what it adds up to. Handed on a silver platter a chance to define their party for the American public, the Democrats, as usual, botched the job. Ever since the triangulation of Clintonism came to substitute for a political philosophy, the Democratic Party has been defined as a list of programs.
For twenty years the GOP has had success countering those programs with its continual litany of “tax and spend” and the implication that those programs were to benefit Democratic interest groups at the expense of the larger American public. “It’s the people’s money,” they said whenever the Democrats proposed another social program, even if it was one that would have a larger public good. The minimum wage, for example, was tarred as a “gift” to big labor at the expense of small and medium-sized businesses.
Democrats claim the election results gave them a mandate to enact the programs on the 100 hours list since they were the centerpieces of virtually every winning Democratic candidacy. You will get no argument from me on that, particularly in states where organized labor and grassroots groups such as America Votes made programs such as affordable prescription drugs critical issues.
As its own web site announces, America Votes represents a crucial change in Democratic Party strategy. For many years, interest groups that tended to support Democrats carried on their own independent campaigns so that voters often found themselves deluged with dozens of phone calls and appeals. What America Votes accomplished was to get these groups to work together, sharing voter lists, campaign strategies and even campaign workers. As the web site states:
America Votes is bringing change to politics as usual by marshalling and uniting the voices, efforts and resources of the most powerful progressive organizations in the country. By getting these organizations to work together, America Votes increases the number of registered progressive voters, provides them with more detailed information on the issues and gets them to the voting booth.
The fall election represented more than merely dissatisfaction with the GOP, for many liberal Democrats its also represented a break with Clintonism. The days of “Republican Lite” are over, said one organizer. For some of the “old dogs” in Congress who had been waiting a quarter of a century to hear such rhetoric, the newcomers are a welcome addition.
However, for the Clintonites–the triangulators–these newcomers are both perplexing and a bit scary. The fear is that the newcomers will become “one term wonders” sent right back out the revolving door of American politics by their own militancy. There is a sense that some of these newcomers think more with their hearts than their heads.
And so we come to the 100 hours list. In a sense it represents a culmination of the work of organizations like America Votes, which had liberal groups collaborating more than at any time since before the Reagan years. So we should celebrate the legislation for what it is: a collective agreement by Democrats and Liberals on what is important for this nation.
But we also should see this as a first step in a larger, and more important process of defining what the Democratic Party stands for. When Newt Gingrich and company put together their infamous Contract with America they made sure that everyone would know what they stood for by putting their values in a preamble that read:
[This] Historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money. It can be the beginning of a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American family.
The Democrats need a similar statement if they are to govern rationally and if they are not to become “one term wonders,” for only by stating their common beliefs will their actions have meaning. They had a chance to do that with the 100 hours initiative, but for some reason they steered clear of values, even though values have been the main focus of the last three elections. If this continues to be the way the Democrats govern, it would be a grave mistake.
In The Strange Death of Liberal America I suggested that the common thread defining Liberal America since the first days of this nation is the idea that government exists to keep the playing field level. That thread also defined FDR’s New Deal and in many ways defines the common ground between the groups that are part of efforts like America Votes. Throughout American history, various parties, groups and individuals have picked up that standard. The Democrats have a historic chance to recover the banner that defined FDR and the New Deal. If they do not, then some other group will.
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