The Left that Lost

Imagine you're one of the Daily Kosers. You've spent the last 3-4ish years preaching the socialist, anti-American hard Left gospel (cloaked largely in Anti-Bush rhetoric). Your hatred for all things Republican boils over all the time. You bleed Blue. Your party finally gets power for the first time in twelve years. And how did that come to be?

You were the only viable alternative.

What a kick to the crotch that must be. You win power and Time says "The center is the place to be." You don't want the Center. You want the Left. What's worse, the very people who carried you to victory don't share your views. Double-shot to the crotch. Tester: pro-gun. Casey: pro-life. Lieberman: pro-war. Webb: who knows, but not hard Left. The reality that your party would not have been able to take the House or Senate if the candidates pushed your view must cut deep.

Man, that sucks.

What message did the electorate send to the new Democratic Congress? If you listen to the Old Media, every report seems to say the same thing: Americans want moderation. NBC says Americans want an end to partisan bickering. ABC says they want a return to the middle. Their analysis is that voters are asking for unity and a more centrist style of governance. TIME even put this on their cover:

I disagree with their analysis. The center is not the place to be. The center is the place to be for Democrats.

The electorate did not vote Democrat because of their moderation. This is blatantly obvious. Were the Democrats running a campaign of unity? Were they talking like Moderates? Were they calling on Left and Right to share in a big group hug? No. Certainly, several moderate Democrats won key election, and that deserves special attention (which it will receive below), but my point is this: the only Democrats talking about moderate positions were themselves moderates. Pelosi, Kerry, Dean--they all trotted out the same bashing and slandering they've run out there before. It was not a call to moderation, nor was it what the people voted for. Instead, they voted against the War. They voted against corruption. They voted against drunken-sailor spending. They voted against President Bush. The Democrats were in the fortunate position of being the only viable alternative.

People neither voted for the Left, nor for the Middle.

The Middle is the place to be for Democrats for several reasons. First, as I discussed in this post, being in power is going to force the Democrats to put up or shut up. Let's go over the points briefly concerning why the Dems can't go Left:

• The times the Dems have run hard Left, they've gotten their hats handed to them by the voters (see 1992-1994 and the resulting Republican Revolution). The hard Left is simply even less acceptable to the people than the hard Right. Every time I read an article like this it makes me and every other normal American want to puke. That's the hard Left.
• They have the weakest Senatorial majority possible--one vote. Three words: Lieberman, Tester, Casey.
• The veto pen. Even if they could push through a Leftist agenda, Bush holds it and will certainly use it. One could argue that they could force Bush's hand and thereby make him look like the bad guy. That's not likely. Remember, Bush can't go much lower, and the Dems have to produce. Voter's won't buy the "Republicans stopped us" excuse.

Assuming that, in fact, Pelosi, Reid, et al, don’t go that far Left, they will have a serious base problem. Moveon.org and the Daily Kos are powerful forces within the Democratic party that must be reckoned with. They are the new, ugly, hard Left. They have effectively subverted organized labor and the Old Media as the power-brokers on their side of the aisle. They raise money like it’s no one’s business. When George Soros went looking for ways to spend millions to beat Bush in '04, he didn't even blink. It went to moveon.org. The last thing any of the Dem Presidential hopefuls will want to do is anger them. This will force presidential contenders to run further Left than the rest of the party, thus weakening the position of the eventual nominee come general election time.

The irony in all this is, assuming they stay somewhat close to the center, their '08 problem will be the same one the GOP had ’06—a base not in love with their party.

The Democrats won, but the Left may well have lost.