MICHAEL CARMICHAEL

archived: 17 - 31 Nov, 2006         Back                 Next

UPDATED:  NOVEMBER 19, 2006

                        DAGGERS DRAWN – DLC VERSUS DNC  

In American politics, there is an old adage:  “The only thing worse than losing an election is winning one.”  Having plenty of experience of both winning and losing elections, I can confirm its veracity. 

On the losing side of the equation, it is apparent that after the historic midterm elections that are driving the neoconservative faction of the Republican Party into political obscurity there is now open and increasingly aggressive warfare raging amongst their ranks.  In a very high profile struggle, the White House is now engaged in battle with the Iraq Study Group over control of US foreign policy and the presidential legacy of George W. Bush.  Control of the Pentagon is also at stake with a rising tide of voices from the uniformed services now speaking out in opposition to the President’s Iraq policy, “Stay the course.” 

At the same time, there is a subterranean level of internecine warfare breaking out across the entire spectrum of the US federal bureaucracy.  For instance, the Pentagon and the US intelligence community are engaged in a struggle for supremacy that mirrors the political conflict surrounding and engulfing the Bush White House. 

On the winning side of the equation and amidst these raging Republican political infernos, the Democrats are now fracturing into a factional conflict of their very own.  The Democratic Party is fracturing on opposite sides of a fault-line pitting the Democratic National Committee (DNC) with its progressive leadership headed by Howard Dean on one side against the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and its “centrist” or “New Democrat” and “Blue Dog” leadership on the other – a powerful faction that is now led by Rahm Emanuel and Charles Schumer. 

The first phase of this conflict came this week in a dual engagement that swept through the Democratic ranks in Congress as well as spilling over into the DNC and the culture of political consultancy in Washington.   

Nancy Pelosi set the cat amongst the pigeons with her endorsement of John Murtha for the post of Majority Leader of the House of Representatives.  Considered a leading Democratic advocate of a strong military, Murtha emerged as the most effective voice in the protest against the failed policies of the Bush White House in waging the war in Iraq.  Advocating a disengagement of US troops by year-end, Murtha had a devastating political impact on the presidency of Bush.  In contrast to Murtha, Steny Hoyer has broken Party ranks to support Republican positions on Iraq against the increasingly stern warnings of Pelosi – the Minority Leader in the last congress when Hoyer served as her deputy, the Minority Whip.   

This Wednesday, Hoyer won his race against Murtha, but both sides will come away from their friendly contest with a new respect for Pelosi’s aggression against those Democrats who collaborate with Republicans on the pivotal issue of the war in Iraq.  Pelosi’s impact was swift and decisive.  The following day, Pelosi’s colleague in the Senate, Harry Reid, dutifully announced his no compromise position on the question of disengagement from Iraq.  

Now ascendant amongst the progressives, the DNC Chair, Governor Howard Dean, has become the target of sneak attacks launched by the leading operatives of the DLC, many of whom appear to be loyal to Hillary Clinton and their cluster of Blue Dog Democrats including:  Rahm Emanuel, Charles Schumer, Tom Vilsack, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden and, yes, even the disgraced but triumphalist, Joseph Lieberman. 

The internal tension has been building for months.  In early clashes with progressive Congressional candidates, Emanuel drew fire for demanding fealty to his support for the Iraq War and obeisance to his stultifying command, “Do not mention the war!”  Critics of Emanuel lamented his “obnoxious” style of bullying in interviews with Time magazine.   

For his part, Charles Schumer outraged progressives when he openly endorsed the candidacy of Joseph Lieberman, the top-ranking collaborator with Bush on the Iraq War.  Although, Schumer swiftly backtracked when he was hit with a chorus of criticism, his pro-Lieberman ploy left a huge tide of distrust and animosity in his wake.   

On election night, Emanuel and Schumer were triumphant on the victory podium along with Pelosi and Reid, while Dean was conspicuous by his absence.  It is perfectly clear that Dean had been banished from the victory podium by the DLC and their minions.  Things took a sharp turn for the worse this week, while Dean was out of the country searching for more votes amongst the vast and groaning diaspora of overseas Democrats, a trip he had postponed until after the crucial election. Americans living abroad are a distinct species of political fauna.  No longer mesmerized by the American media, they are able to observe the impact of Washington’s foreign policy from a new and starkly refreshing perspective.  Few if any Americans abroad support the outrageous neoconservative policies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. 

In a surprise assault worthy of the Ides of March, James Carville leapt into the breach for the DLC.  In a savage stabbing lunge worthy of Casca, Carville planted the first dagger into the back of Governor Dean while he was away from Washington attending the conference of the Americas Division of Democrats Abroad meeting in the Dominican Republic to organize voter registration among the millions of US citizens now living overseas.  

Following Carville’s first blow and swiftly emerging from behind the arras, the Cassius of the DLC faction, Stanley Greenberg, planted his dagger deeply into Dean’s exposed back.  Carville and Greenberg are long-term business partners, and they carefully selected the New York Times, the hometown newspaper of Schumer and Clinton as the scene of their syncopated sneak assault on Dean. 

Jealous of Dean’s new exaltation, because he is now seen as the primary architect of the sweeping Democratic victory last week, Greenberg and Carville are doing what they see as the bare bones minimum to preserve their now historic credibility as the premiere Democratic consultants in Washington.  This project may well prove difficult, since both men have checkered records that contain very little in the form of winning elections that might inspire confidence in their political sagacity while Dean’s achievement last week now stands a shining example of the dawn of a new era in American politics. 

When he was elected Chairman of the DNC last year, Dean took command of a party that was not functioning in all fifty states.  The geographic dysfunction of the party was the product of a long-standing policy of deliberate neglect advocated by the centrist school of political consultants who focused resources exclusively on those races likely to produce winners.  This process of focused resources eventually led to the withering of the body politic of the Democratic Party and permitted the electoral disasters from 1994 to 2004.   

The political consultancies representing the so-called “New Democrats” movement that traces its origins back to the Reagan era and the emergence of what is now dubiously termed, “Reagan Democrats” had conciously and with premeditation aforethought truncated their Party’s operations across a broad band of red states where they simply surrendered to Reaganism, Republicanism and ultimately, the radical policies of reactionary neoconservativism.   

Greenberg’s polling and Carville’s consultancy frequently argue for middle-of-the-road positions that defuse the message of political campaigns and focus on peripheral issues that they deem safe, ie. cheaper prescription drugs for senior citizens and opposition to gay marriage.  At a talk in London early this year, Greenberg actually proposed opposition to gay marriage as a central theme in this year’s Democratic campaign.  From another perspective, this type of centrist campaign would have played directly into the hands of the Republicans by appealing to and activating their base.  In the closing days of the campaign, Republicans from Bush to the back of beyond attempted to activate their faltering base by raising the spectre of gay marriage as a probable by-product of a Democratic victory.  While Greenberg was lobbying for a campaign predicated on opposition to gay marriage, progressive political consultants urged the Democratic Party to adopt the theme of:  “Change the course in Iraq.”   

As a former presidential candidate who ran a strong antiwar campaign, Dean saw through Greenberg’s formula – which echoed so many losing mantra from the past twelve years – as another golden opportunity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  In the closing weeks, Democrats ran a strongly focused campaign predicated on changing policy on Iraq.  The results speak for themselves. 

When Dean took over the helm of the DNC, he set about resuscitating the body politic of what might be seen as his patient – since he is a medical doctor.  Realizing that the patient’s immune system was collapsing – especially in its geographic extremities, Dean diagnosed a partial paralysis.  At that point, Dean developed a prognosis:  the patient was ill but essentially healthy, needing stimulation, growth and a heavy concentration of political nutrients.  The top priority became political revival in parts of America where the Republican paralysis had first numbed and then obliterated the last traces of Democratic viability and articulation.  Like a surgeon, Dean realized that the patient needed immediate resuscitation in advance of longer-term recuperation, rehabilitation and restoration. 

From his presidential campaign, Dean learned the impact of modern technology in political campaigning.  The internet is the ideal mechanism for the stimulating organization and resuscitation programme the Party needed.  Dr. Dean prescribed a mild form of shock therapy for his partially paralytic and semi-comatose patient.  Led by a team of highly skilled and dedicated IT specialists who now work for the DNC and their counterparts in all fifty state party headquarters, Dean began the systematic reinvigoration of his patient who responded swiftly to the stimulating treatment.   

With the patient’s pulses and circulation improving now nurturing the grassroots of the Party, Dean’s first phase of operation was seen as a success.  What could be described as Dean’s incisive procedures produced a torrent of local activists who were willing to make telephone calls, provide small financial contributions and canvas their neighborhoods for political support as well as launch a recruitment drive for new candidates.   

Inside the headquarters of the DNC, Dean’s campaign to stimulate and revivify the Party gained a huge burst of enthusiasm when many new and totally fresh candidates stepped forward to represent the Party in the midterms for previously non-contested offices.  Following the emergence of impressive slates of Democratic candidates in all fifty states for the first time in years, the patient’s progress was both remarkable and apparent to everybody who was taking notice and reading the charts.  Encouragingly, it has become apparent that factions inside the DNC who were at first deeply skeptical of Dean’s diagnosis have been transformed into some of his most ardent and forthright admirers today. 

In 2003, Dean’s presidential campaign became a phenomenon through its amazing ability to raise more money than any of his traditionalist, pro-war and DLC-approved opponents including John Edwards and John Kerry.  While Kerry’s campaign went into debt when he was forced to mortgage his home in Boston in December, 2003, Dean’s campaign set fundraising records that astonished party professionals.  When Dean arrived at the DNC, so did his experience in internet fundraising.  Today, small contributors are providing a huge proportion of the DNC budget, a situation that contrasts sharply with the politics of the 1990s and every previous decade – when wealthy donors, labor and corporate interests provided the funding.  A strong and healthy flow of small financial contributions now sustains the Dean-Era DNC.  There is good reason to predict that this flow will become a flood in 2007 as a direct result of the midterm elections. 

It is clear that not only is the internet an organizational tool par excellence, but it is also a fundraising bonanza for modern political parties with a compelling message.  This fact of 21^st century culture is now creating a great deal of unrest amongst some of the largest corporations in the United States.  Big Pharma is already shaking in its proverbial boots at the mere thought of the enactment of low cost prescription drug bills in the next congress.  Other special interests will soon be trembling, too.  According to his website, Stanley Greenberg has enjoyed a successful business relationship with many leading multi-national corporations.  James Carville consults with commercial clients as well.  Their corporate sensibilities may represent another point of reference in their animosity and distrust of the political phenomenon that is emerging around Dean. 

During the campaign Dean’s volunteers went to over one million voters handing them information about the Party’s platform.  All told, using canvassers, telephone banks and viral marketing, Dean’s forces contacted thirty-one million registered voters.  On Election Day, Dean emailed two distinct door-hangers to his legions of Democratic Party canvassers.  One door-hanger set out voting rights for those who might face Republican Party challenges to their registration, and the other set out a clear six-point platform to “Change the course” and raise the minimum wage that contrasted starkly with the Republicans’ “Stay the course” and reluctance to raise costs for employers.  From the results, it is now perfectly clear that these tools crafted by Dean helped deliver the votes to the Democrats. 

Political messaging sets Howard Dean apart from other leading Democrats.  Regarded as a tremendously formidable candidate who can be devastating on the podium, Dean’s delivery of the Party platform on television drew a sharp contrast with the much less effective appearances of his predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, a favorite of the centrist DLC faction.  When the Jack Abramoff scandal hit Congress, Dean was the first Democrat out of the blocks to face the flack of the television news shows when Republicans charged that Democrats were equally tainted by the sleaze of K Street.  Putting forward a compelling case, Dean argued that no Democrats had received any tainted funds from Abramoff.   None, nada, niente.  The impact of Dean’s Abramoff interviews shattered the Republican attempt to confuse the public while propelling the issue of political corruption to torpedo velocity.  

In their orchestrated attack on Dean, Carville and Greenberg argued against Dean essentially charging him with incompetence by presenting obscure strains of logic that defied the fact that his strategy had delivered majorities in both houses of Congress.  Stating that Dean had left races “on the table” by deliberately withholding needed funds from marginal races, Carville and Greenberg opened fire in an internecine struggle for control of the Democratic Party.   

For some very obvious reasons, traditional centrists of the DLC such as Carville and Greenberg prefer the concentration of party resources on polling, focus groups and expensive media campaigns – all standard practices and products in their industry and the core products of their businesses. 

After winning his office in early 2005, Dean announced that he would launch a vigorous reconstruction of the political architecture of the Democratic Party by refusing to kowtow to the group that he termed, “the aristocracy of consultants.”  As the most financially successful political consultants in Democratic Party circles, Dean’s remarks have been interpreted as a stinging rebuke of the circle surrounding Carville and Greenberg who have become wealthy while the Party drifted into paralysis and coma.  Another consultant who is identified as a leading figure in this ancien regime of the centrist school is Mr. Robert Shrum, who has the dubious distinction of having been the lead consultant in at least eight losing Democratic presidential campaigns.  It seems rather odd that Mr. Gordon Brown, the hand-picked successor to Tony Blair, is an admirer of Mr. Shrum.  But, Greenberg is an advisor to Tony Blair and New Labour, where his business interests are represented by his British partner, Philip Gould, a long-serving confidante of the deeply unpopular prime minister whose approval rating is now in the low 20s - and trending lower because of his support for Bush’s war in Iraq. 

Precisely one week after the glorious midterm elections of 2006 – when the neoconservative era in the United States was hurled into the rubbish pit of history - in what was to be a night of the long knives, James Carville and Stanley Greenberg,  two star performers for the  Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) - dutifully and metaphorically stabbed Governor Howard Dean in the back.  The first response was swift and devastating.  State party chairs and former aides to Hillary Clinton now working at the DNC defended Dean who has remained silent at the time of this writing. 

When Adam Nagourney ended his interview with Greenberg who had echoed Carville’s charge that Dean should have invested more available funds in several marginal races, he asked a potent question that confused and embarrassed his subject.  Recalling the second Swift-Boating of John Kerry who had made an appalling mess of his attempt to attack George W. Bush that dominated the headlines for at least three news cycles, Nagourney asked Greenberg whether that backlash could have made the difference in the loss of several of the close races including that of Heather Wilson in New Mexico.  Nagourney posed a two-part question that flustered Greenberg.  Nagourney reported that Greenberg “fumbled” and stuttered his way to an acquiescence that Kerry’s gaffe had, in fact, led to the slump that cost the Democrats several close races discrediting his own contention of Dean’s incompetence.   

With their attack now in tatters, it remains to be seen what the next move of the DLC led by their increasingly desperate pair of Brutuses – Emanuel and Schumer - will be to drive Dean out of the DNC. 

________ 

References 

Democrat image dented already by leadership battle
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2457505,00.html 

Hoyer vs. Murtha: A Pelosi Win-Win
http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/11/16/hoyer-vs-murtha-a-pelosi-win-win/ 

Vote won, Democrats go after next enemy: Democrats
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/15/news/dems.php 

Loss Leader / At 0-7, Adviser Bob Shrum Is Well Acquainted With the Concession Speech
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9895-2004Sep9.html

__________________

NEXT - STEVEN JONAS

Last Update: 12/03/2006