|
|
|
archived: 30 Jan - 5 Feb, 2005 Back Next UPDATED: February 1, 2004 D-DAY FOR THE DNC February 12th is D-Day for the DNC. What takes place on that date will determine the future of the Party, the nation and the planet. At this moment in our history, America is the theatre of a political and cultural war of planetary proportions. Two enormous tides of public opinion are clashing over America. One, the religious right, places personal morality on a pedestal and demands that government act like a “Big Brother” to control the most intimate details of every individual’s life. How this group can actually argue that Democrats are in favor of big government escapes me. They are not really interested in constitutional democracy or individual freedom; they are on the march to establish a theocratic system in the USA that would be the equivalent of Islamic Sharia. The opposing column, the secular center, demands that individuals be free to make every decision about their personal lives but that government must be in control of the social and physical environment. This progressive and secular movement is in favor of constitutional democracy and the separation of church and state which places it in diametric opposition to the devoutly theocratic religious right. Keen observers of our political and cultural development are well aware that we are experiencing a revolution in the form of information technology. For instance, at long last the Democratic Party is on equal footing with the Republicans in terms of fund-raising. That is a major milestone in American political history. In addition to fundraising, the organizing power of the internet has led to real power at the grassroots level. That said, our tightly consolidated corporate media has never been more influential. US media is powerful precisely because it has a strong message with few mixed metaphors. Its message is quite literally, corporatism encapsulated in the freedom to exploit the global markets. There is virtually no room for debate or opposing opinions within the US media. The spectrum of public opinion in America is spectacularly narrower than it is in Europe, Africa, Asia or Latin America. With the DNC facing the imminent election of a new Chair, the Party is being pulled in two opposing directions in a colossal internecine struggle. One side is urging a merger with the religious right, and the other is urging a surge toward the progressive center of America’s constitutional heritage. One side is dominated by the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and their satellite movement dubbed the “New Democrats” while the other is coalescing around a progressive and pro-democratic center. Joe Lieberman reigns as the undisputed cultural hero of the DLC, while the Progressives have several leaders: Barbara Boxer, John Conyers, Howard Dean, Jesse Jackson, Jr., RFK, Jr., Dennis Kucinich and Mel Watt. For a bit of political perspective, it should be noted that Joe Lieberman is the Honorary Co-Chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), an organization that was formed in the 1950s to support Senator Joseph McCarthy, the right-wing demagogue who sought Communists under every bed and in every nook and cranny in America until he came unglued when he was criticized by a young freshman Senator from North Carolina, Sam J. Ervin, Jr. In the 1970s, President Gerald Ford and ex-CIA Director, George H. W. Bush revitalized the CPD in order to help control the political operations of a group they termed “conservative Democrats” which included the late Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, a slavish political pawn of the arms industry that was located in his home state of Washington. In later years, the CPD helped to spawn the DLC, the New Democrats, and it has taken an increasing interest in the machinations of the DNC. The combination of changes that are sweeping across America: the internet, media consolidation and the surge of the right suggest to me that Democrats need to do things differently in the future than they have done them in the past. In the past, the Chair of the DNC has been a technocrat, a bureaucrat, a political operative who has been responsible for the mechanical operations of political campaigning, fundraising and organization while the leadership of the party was left to the elected leaders in the White House, Congress and the State Houses. I believe that model has had its day, because a new day is dawning in America and the world outside of our borders. In 2002 and 2003, in the absence of a presidential candidate, the Democratic Party sent a massive bundle of mixed messages to American voters. We were as diverse as the spectrum from Joe Lieberman on the right (who publicly adores most of the worst policies of the Bush White House) to Dennis Kucinich on the left who is an implacable foe of everything that Bush and the religious right stand for today. The Republicans are much more harmonious. They agree on the “Big Brother” concept of government with its core mission of laws to enforce personal morality, but they disagree very mildly over the way to fund and go about achieving their peculiar goals. They agree that America should intervene militarily in the affairs of other nations – as long as they are weak and unlikely to cause us any real trouble. Republicans agree on American unilateralism. They uniformly loathe and mistrust the United Nations and every form of international law. They view America as a unique and god given gift to humanity – literally a nation that is on a “mission from god” ala the Blues Brothers. In their attitude to foreign policy, they reject utterly the advice of President John Quincy Adams who warned against America seeking out monsters to destroy on foreign shores. That said, the Republicans have a clearly defined vision of their mission thanks largely to Jesse Helms, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, while the Democrats do not – or at least they have not discovered how to project their message as effectively. The reason that the Democrats do not have a clearly defined message is simple. They have far too many people from the DLC saying, “Mimic the Republicans!” or, “Support Partial Birth Abortion Ban!” or, “Support Bush’s War on Terror or Tyranny or whatever he says next!” or, “Support the End of Social Security as we have known it for over 70 years, which are all variations on the become more like their ‘Do as the Republicans do’ mantra. Therefore, it is undeniably true that the Democratic Party has an infestation of Republican clones, moles, agents provocateurs and political operatives who are undermining every attempt to launch an effective and potentially successful pro-democracy campaign. The election of the next Chair of the DNC will be the Democratic Party’s equivalent of D-Day. I am optimistic that major gains can and will be made in 2006, but we must do one essential thing that we have been unable to do in the past. We must define the Democratic Party as the party of the New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, civil rights, voting rights, equal rights, human rights and the progressive policies of the Carter and Clinton administrations. For these reasons, I believe that one candidate stands head and shoulders above the others: Governor Howard Dean. Governor Dean is the best and most effective spokesman in our party. He is most certainly not the radical extremist that his detractors have unfairly claimed him to be. For example, he is well to my right on: gun control, gay marriage and environmental protection. Howard Dean is actually a product of the progressive center of the American political spectrum, and that is why Harold Ickes, a well known Democratic strategist who helped the Clintons has recently endorsed him. While Dean is surely the leading candidate for the post, Donnie Fowler is another outstanding candidate. I knew his father who was a tremendously effective and under-appreciated Chairman of the DNC in the mid-1990s who helped mastermind the successful 1996 campaign. To his immense credit, Donnie Fowler has a strong statement about women’s rights on his website, and he calls himself a progressive who wants to bring many positive changes to the Party. While Dean is an orator without peer, Fowler speaks the language of the common men and women of America. Both Dean and Fowler are urging the same strategy: a wresting of power from the clique of right-wing political consultants who – with the coercion of the DLC - have led the Party to defeat after defeat consistently and without respite for the past seventeen years. As I have pointed out repeatedly in previous columns, the DLC has never won any election. The victories of Bill Clinton had nothing whatsoever to do with his center-right policies and everything to do with his charismatic personality and the crisis management abilities of his key staff, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. If I had a vote in this race - which I do not - I would cast it for Howard Dean, because I am more familiar with his ideas, and I know him much better than I do Donnie Fowler. Governor Dean has the stature and the messaging ability to do battle with the Republican leadership on equal footing, while Donnie Fowler is not yet in that league – but someday, perhaps, very soon, he will be. If Governor Dean does win the Chair, I would urge him to reach out to Donnie Fowler and to employ him in the essential task of shaping and molding the Democratic Party into a true standard bearer for the progressive center. Under Dean, Fowler’s first assignment would be to reorganize the DLC in order to change it into a progressive opposition force for a change. If Donnie Fowler wins this office and I were able to advise him, I would urge him to reach out to Howard Dean and to work with him as the leading catalyst in the transformation of the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party into the truly effective pro-democracy movement that it deserves to be. The D-Day of this comment does not stand for either Dean or Donnie. It stands for definition. The Democratic Party must define itself clearly and concisely and never again allow its leading lights to postpone that essential process – that defining moment - until the day after Super Tuesday in 2008 when we will have another presidential candidate. It is time for the Democratic Party to move into the twenty-first century, and I believe that it will. With both Howard Dean and Donnie Fowler working together, we can accomplish that task. They both know very well that they will each need the other to win in 2006 and beyond. __________________ Since 1968, Michael Carmichael has been a professional political consultant. Beginning as a Student Coordinator for Robert F. Kennedy, he has worked in five US presidential campaigns as well as over 100 major American political campaigns for federal and state offices. In 1985, he founded The Oxford Centre for Public Affairs in the United Kingdom. In 2003, he founded The Planetary Movement Limited, a global political action organization based in the United Kingdom.
Last Update: 03/23/2006 |
