Democrats' Division Is Their Hidden Strength

The Washington Post’s story on “Democrats Struggle To Seize Opportunity” is being discussed in much of the blogosphere. As it is a rehash of the same Republican talking points we’ve been hearing for a while, we wound up addressing this even before the article was published.

Yesterday’s post on The Republican’s Broken Contact is one answer to this. While true that Republicans have a more unified message, it is the wrong message. Americans do not want a government which is more intrusive in their lives. Americans do not want to cut taxes more for the ultra-wealthy while watching the deficit grow. Americans do not want a perpetual state of warfare which reduces rather than increases our vulnerability to terrorist attacks. Americans do not want to continue to pay double digit increases in health care insurance annually, and do not see putting money into Health Savings Accounts as a solution. Americans do not want to jeopardize the long term survival of Social Security by partially privatizing the system.

The Iraq war is cited as the Democrats’ greatest dilemma, but this is in fact a Republican dilemma. Republican false claims about the threat from WMD and nonexistent ties between Saddam and al Qaeda got us into this quagmire. Republican lack of planning has made success unlikely. When the Republicans are digging us into a hole, the Democrats only need one message–stop digging holes. They can then afford to have different views as to what to do next. Rather than echoing Republican talking points which falsely claim that Kerry supported the war, Democratic bloggers would better serve our purpose by quoting John Kerry’s accurate pre-war predictions of the outcome as he urged, “Mr. President, do not rush to war.”

Democrats may have multiple messages as there are many ways to move forward, while Republicans have a unified argument to defend the status quo. This may be a strength for the Democrats which the media is ignoring. After five years of seeing the Bush Worshippers blindly follow wherever they were led, events such as in Iraq and New Orleans revealed for all that those leaders are the ones who are truly lost. Americans are losing confidence in those who arrogantly claim their way is the only way. The voters are thinking more clearly than the pundits, as they are showing their preference such as in the Gallup Poll we noted earlier which shows increased support for Democrats. If the Washington Post (with the exception of E.J. Dionne) believes the Democrats are struggling, this is a struggle they appear to be winning.