Democrats Become an Effective Opposition

Do the Democrats have a plan? While Republicans claim they don’t we’ve had numerous posts showing that, like most Republican claims, this is all talk. (One example here).

One problem the country has faced is that each party is in the wrong position if we consider their strengths and weaknesses. First after the Goldwater loss, and then after decades of being out of power in Congress. the Republicans learned how to become an effective opposition, but once taking control have been totally inept at governing. The Democrats are capable of governing, but have been slow to figure out how to be an effective opposition party.

The logical solution would be to reverse their rolls and allow the Democrats to resume governing and allow the Republicans to return to their role as opposition party as this is the one thing they are capable of doing. Amy Sullivan addresses the resurgence of the Democrats as an opposition party in The Washington Monthly, and shows how it is possible that 2006 may lead to the preferred situation I suggested above. The mainstream media has been missing what has been happening due to repeating the Republican claims about Democrats and ignoring Democratic proposals while they have been out of power:

What the GOP did so brilliantly in 1994 was exploit Clinton’s weaknesses (his 1993 tax increase, his wife’s failed health-care initiative), as well as the sense among voters that reigning congressional Democrats had become complacent and corrupt (reviving the Keating Five and House banking scandals). Well, guess what? This is precisely what congressional Democrats have been getting better at doing over the past 18 months. And just as most observers missed the coming Republican revolution in 1994, so they’re missing a similar insurgency today.

Sullivan presents multiple examples of what the media has been missing, including Democratic victories on preventing the privatization of Social Security and turning Iraq from a winning issue to a losing one for the Republicans.