The Voices In Their Heads

It's beginning to dawn on the Democrats who have not completely lost their minds that they are in serious trouble nine months out from the next round of congressional elections:

Democrats described a growing sense that they had failed to take full advantage of the troubles that have plagued Mr. Bush and his party since the middle of last year, driving down the President's approval ratings, opening divisions among Republicans in Congress over policy and potentially putting control of the House and Senate into play in November.

Asked to describe the health of the Democratic Party, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said: "A lot worse than it should be. This has not been a very good two months."

"We seem to be losing our voice when it comes to the basic things people worry about," Mr. Dodd said.

Democrats said they had not yet figured out how to counter the White House's long assault on their national security credentials. And they said their opportunities to break through to voters with a coherent message on domestic and foreign policy — should they settle on one — were restricted by the lack of an established, nationally known leader to carry their message this fall.

As a result, some Democrats said, their party could lose its chance to do to Republicans this year what the Republicans did to them in 1994: make the midterm election, normally dominated by regional and local concerns, a national referendum on the party in power.

I bet you couldn't guess this was from a New York Times piece, couldja? Like the "troubles driving down the President's approval ratings," which amounts to Bush refusing to defend himself against the Donks' endless attacks, and the phantom "divisions among Republicans" the Left is always hoping for while ignoring the real and burgeoning civil war in their own ranks (e.g. over the Alito filibuster).

Senator Dodd is lucid enough to recognize the problem, but not the cause. The Democrats are not "losing their voice" at all; rather, the American public is hearing them loud and clear, and simply does not like what they are saying. The White House's "long assault on their national security credentials" is in fact only about three months long; the Democrats have been undermining their own "credentials" vis-a-vie the GWOT for coming up on four years and show no signs of calling off the surrender monkeys any time soon. Indeed, the Bushies finally pushing back is what is responsible for the recent rebound in the President's poll numbers.

As to the lack of an established, nationally known leader, that, frankly, is a cop-out. The out-of-power party never has such a leader in off-year or mid-term election cycles. Did Newt Gingrich fit that description in 1994? After the GOP tsunami that laid waste to four decades of corrupt, dictatorial Dem rule, sure - anybody else remember the "Gingrinch" stories that Chrismas season? - but before? Debatable at best.

What Republicans twelve years ago did have is a coherent, comprehensive, popular agenda on which to run that nationalized those mid-term elections and turned all the Democrats' weaknesses - most especially Bill Clinton - against them. But not only do the Dems lack such an agenda going into the 2006 campaign, but their leadership actually believes that they don't even need one:

"It's absolutely required that the party talk about things in addition to the Abramoff scandal," said Martin Frost, former leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "I think the climate is absolutely right to take back the House or the Senate or both. But you can't do it without a program."

And Mr. Bayh said, "I don't believe we will win by just not being them."

Ms. Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, did not dispute that argument. But, pointing to the Democratic strategy in defeating Mr. Bush's Social Security proposal last year, she said there was no rush.

"People said, 'You can't beat something with nothing,' " she said, arguing that the Democrats had in fact accomplished precisely that this year. "I feel very confident about where we are." [emphasis added]

Now you know why I call her "Crazy Nancy." The hag is delusional. Her party stands for Bushophobia and blanket obstructionism and sedition riding the ragged edge of treason and nothing else. If restored to the majority in the House, as I have predicted ever since the 2000 election, the first order of business for the Democrats will be articles of impeachment against President Bush and probably Vice President Cheney while they're at it. That's what their insane nutter base demands, and that's the only wing of that party that has any money or energy. But as the last five-plus years have proven time and again, it turns off mainstream voters in droves and loses elections.

If rabid, seething rage and extremism were ever going to triumph, it would have been in 2004, and not only was Bush narrowly re-elected anyway, but the GOP gained seats in both house of Congress in the process. So what's changed in the fifteen months since then other than that the Donks have gotten even angrier and more extreme?

Jonah Goldberg dug up a very applicable George Orwell aphorism today: "A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, but then fail all the more completely because he drinks." However, I prefer the adage that says insanity can be defined as repeating the same failed strategy ad infinitum in the blind faith that if it's tried enough times, it will eventually succeed.

The Democrat Party desperately needs to "move on." But it looks like their wheel-spinning and bile-spitting - and election-losing - isn't done by a long shot.

[HT: CQ]