John Nichols: Cautious Dems pay a price

1/24/2008

Election years invariably produce stacks of books about the political parties that -- for better or worse, mostly worse -- form the framework of the American electoral system.

The vast majority of them will fail to last the year, and rightly so.

That's because they are written not by people who care passionately about the values that are supposed to define a Democrat or a Republican but by pundits and out-of-work pols who reduce heart-and-soul concerns to drab debates about strategy.

Books about the Republican Party are generally written by people on two sides of the debate over the future of conservatism: those who refuse to believe Ronald Reagan is really dead and those who refuse to believe that George Bush is really alive. They are, for the most part, forgettable documents that fail to acknowledge the obvious: The party has been based on a lie for the better part of 30 years -- the notion that Wall Street investors who hang out in the Hamptons have anything in common with laid-off workers in Indiana who are freaked out about same-sex marriage -- and the lie is unraveling.

The only thing more indefensible than books about the Republican Party are books about the Democratic Party.

The Democratic stack is distinguished only by its painful predictability.

There is always a nightmarishly awful book by a New Republic writer about why Democrats have to pump up their old Cold Warrior muscles by joining neoconservatives in replacing the Communist bogeyman of the bad old days with the Muslim bogeyman of the bad new days.

There is always an even more nightmarishly awful book by a New York Times writer about why the Democrats must abandon their loyalty to the traditions of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman in order to be "modern" like the Republicans.

It is enough to turn even the most serious political reader toward fiction.

But, don't despair. We have Glenn Hurowitz's "Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party" to see us through the 2008 campaign season.

This is a smart book by a smart man who cares deeply about the Democratic Party and recognizes that its dismal track record in recent years -- both out of power and in -- is less about specific stands on issues than it is about a deep and unrelenting ignorance of what matters, and what works, in politics.

"It's not that they're intrinsically bad or cowardly," Hurowitz says of Democratic leaders. "It's that they remain slaves to a deeply flawed political strategy that says courage would ruin their political chance of success."

He is, of course, correct.

Democrats who were elected in 2006 to end the war in Iraq and to hold those responsible for the war to account have done neither. Is it because they support the war? No, most Democrats in the House and Senate opposed authorizing George Bush to take the country to war in the critical 2002 Congressional votes, and the overwhelming majority of Democrats elected in 2006 ran as anti-war candidates. Is it because they have a fondness for George Bush and Dick Cheney? No, they know these are dangerous and delusional men who have done severe damage to the Republic.

So what's wrong?

Hurowitz argues that there is a courage deficit. And he makes the case by examining the records of various Democratic leaders -- some of them courageous, some of them not.

Former Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone is remembered as a paragon of virtue, a predictable enough assessment. But Hurowitz digs into Wellstone's story with a fine eye for detail and gives depth to this discussion of courage -- especially when it comes to Wellstone's election season votes against Bill Clinton's welfare reform agenda and George Bush's war plans. And Hurowitz, who served as a deputy national field director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group before starting Democratic Courage -- a group "dedicated to electing a progressive, courageous and winning Democratic presidential candidate" -- reminds us that Wellstone was not the last of his kind. He writes ably, for instance, about a pair of edgy new Democratic senators, Montana's Jon Tester and Virginia's Jim Webb.

But Hurowitz is at his best when he takes on the Democrats who do not seem to understand that Americans want muscular leadership rather than apologies and compromises. He uses former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. -- the man who helped Bush put the finishing touches on the Patriot Act and promote the war -- as an example of a classically ineffectual and ultimately failed Democratic leader. And, of course, former President Bill Clinton is recalled as a Democratic leader who left no progressive legacy whatsoever.

The critique is right. But what's the solution? Hurowitz suggests that progressives need to alter their dysfunctional relationship with the Democratic Party. Democrats who stand strong for progressive ideals should be supported, strongly. Those who fail to do so should be abandoned, quickly and unceremoniously.

Hurowitz has suggested that we would be wise to begin by recognizing the threat that is posed by Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy. "Hillary Clinton," he suggests, "has repeatedly given in too easily to pressure -- and too often decides her policies not on the basis of what's right, but on the basis of what polls and focus groups tell her. As history shows, that's a dangerous road for Democrats and for the country."

Hurowitz is not a Hillary hater. He is a Hillary explainer. And what he explains in this fine book is that the politics of the pulled punch and the compromised conscience may deliver a transitory victory for the Democrats. But it never wins the future.