Democratic Power Struggle E. J. Dionne Jr. --WaPo

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/30/AR2006113001161.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email

Democratic Power Struggle

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, December 1, 2006; A29



The most important tension within the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives is not between liberals and conservatives or free traders and fair traders. It is between older members who once enjoyed the power and perks of majority status, and their younger colleagues who will experience real power for the first time.

The older members -- many of whom will be taking over committee chairmanships -- came to political maturity in the pre-Clinton, pre-Gingrich era, before the full flowering of the permanent campaign. They governed from a House in which committee leaders typically had more power than the House speaker in shaping legislation.

But nearly two-thirds of the Democrats in the new House have been elected since 1994, meaning they have only known life in the opposition during a time when Republicans radically centralized control in their leadership. In their hunger to overturn the Republican majority, these younger Democrats honed their strategic shrewdness by taking the lesson from Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich that politics and policy are inevitably linked.

The key to Nancy Pelosi's success as speaker will be to find a way to bring the old bulls and the Young Turks together.

Democratic optimists -- now that the party has again won an election the phrase is no longer an oxymoron -- think the management of the 2006 campaign is a signal that Pelosi will draw on the talents of both groups. She entrusted campaign strategy to Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the quintessential Young Turk and Clinton administration veteran who out-toughed Karl Rove in a contest of political will.

STILL CAN'T GET A HANDLE ON THE AMAZING RESSURECTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY--PITY THE POOR PUNDITS!

[Skink]

1. The republican noise machine at work.

[madfloridian]

2. Rahm is now being called The Young Turk?

And he is saying we were given the job so we would not be polarizing?

Oh, boy, ever since the election we are hearing nothing but play nice, be nice, even from our Democrats.

It is going to come down to a fight whether we like it or not.

The usual play nice suspects need to go sit in the corner now.

[KoKo]

3. The last part of the article is worth the read. Dionne isn't a Repug and

seems to be pointing out what Pelosi will be facing from his perspective.

:shrug:

[paulk]

4. Dionne is one of the best mainstream liberal pundits

we've got... and you're right, this article does a good job laying out what Pelosi and the Democrats will be facing. I thought these two paragraphs laid it out really well...

"The upshot is that Pelosi will be cajoling her committee leaders (the average age of the anticipated chairmen is close to 67) to keep their eyes on separate time frames: two years and, say, a decade. Democrats will need to be -- and also look-- effective enough to reelect their majority, and perhaps even win the presidency, in 2008. And they have to accept that many of the reforms they seek will take far more than a single congressional term to achieve.

There is also this: The basis for this new majority is very different from the one Democrats enjoyed between 1954 and 1994. The old majority depended heavily on representatives from the big cities of the North and rural areas in the South. The new majority, as Emanuel has been preaching, was built on gains in suburban and exurban areas and a new brand called "suburban populism," which he defines as "a revolt against Rovian polarization politics." The Democrats are increasingly the party of the metropolitan areas, suburban as well as urban, especially outside the South."



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The 2006 election was just one battle in a war... something we can't lose sight of - the bigger battle is going to be 2008, and we need to win that one to reverse what Bush has wrought.

Pelosi is going to have to play her cards very carefully...