The one common opinion of DU about which I am the most confused

jpgray

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Mon Sep-22-08 08:10 PM
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The one common opinion of DU about which I am the most confused

It's the idea that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid possess the power to effectively control Congress on controversial issues. This concept has never made sense to me, given the status of our current delegation.

First look at the "majorities" we currently enjoy: "1" in the Senate (guess who it is!), and 16 or so in the House. The 16 in the house seems great, no? Well, it isn't. It amounts to about a 53% majority (233 v 202), which is solid but hardly a session-dominating monster of a lead.

So those are the strict numbers. A virtual tie in the Senate, and a marginal majority in the House. But wait a minute! We've seen the GOP work wonders (horrors) with that sort of tenuous grip. The question then becomes: why can't the Democrats?

The answer is simple and well-known by all (though ignored by many)--the Democratic delegation is fractious and not at all united. They are not anywhere close to monolithic in their ends, means or anything in-between. The GOP, however, -is- mostly united, as befits their extremely authoritarian character and stances in general.

Don't believe it? Let's consider the blue dog coalition alone, which officially numbers 47 in the House. Typically these pols are from reddish states and have trumpeted the standard "conservative values": "tough" on foreign policy, deregulators on business/trade, and social conservatives on domestic policy. (One might ask "Why are they Democrats?" or "Were they the best Dem to run?", but in any case that's what we're dealing with at the moment.) When you subtract a significant number of those 47 Dems on a controversial issue (say, the war or impeachment), Pelosi has very little actual power.

I'll agree that Pelosi and Reid have failed to wrangle our delegation effectively, and that they've failed to pounce on important issues where we have the advantage. However, I believe that their failures to impeach Bush or end the war via killing its funding are easily explained by a simple lack of real strength. It's frustrating and infuriating on a superficial level that we can't muster up all the troops on any given issue (though we did on Habeas Corpus). We see the GOP effortlessly vote as one on an unpopular stance and under tough pressure, so when our party can't it seems inexplicable on the face of it.

However another result of the "big tent" is that it allows those on the -progressive- margin of the caucus (like Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders) to be -far- more effective than they would be if shoved out for the sake of "unity." If the party adopted strict authoritarian control of message, means and ends, we wouldn't just lose the blue dogs, we'd lose some important progressive voices. If we adopted such on progressive lines (for impeachment, for defunding the war), the blue dogs would bolt and we'd only possess about 43% of the House to the GOP's 46%. We'd lose chairmanships, we'd lose legislative control, we'd lose quite a bit.

So what's to be done? Absolutely write and call Pelosi and Reid and clamor for more action and consistency, but more importantly you should make your feelings known to your own representatives. In many cases it isn't Pelosi deciding "I don't want a strong stance against the war," but rather a sizable portion of our delegation. They can slip under the radar by refusing their support, while Pelosi will become the visible symbol of their fear and inaction.

She should do better, and Reid should do better. That much is self-evident. If we win a larger majority in '08 and the presidency besides, we'll see if I'm correct about this or if Reid and Pelosi are actually the moral cowards many DUers accuse them of being. But I think there's evidence enough to show that cowardice and complicity aren't the -only- explanations for the lack of strong action on controversial issues. What do you think?