Robert L. Borosage is co-director of the Campaign For America's Future.
The election is still two weeks off but the recriminations have already begun. Former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey, a free-market ideologue, trashes James Dobson and the Christian Right as “thugs.” Dobson warns Republicans that the religious right may not turn out, dismayed by the Foley scandals and the lack of progress on their social agenda. Richard Viguerie, the mass mail guru of the far right, suggests that it might be a good thing for these “Big Government Republicans” to lose control and learn once more the power of the movement right.
Democrats tend to be giddy these days, but already signs of preemptive dissatisfaction are murmured on the left, as progressives bemoan the absence of any visible agenda, any big ideas or any bold leader. And Senate leaders are already lining up to chastise progressives for demanding too much, for challenging Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and pushing too hard on the war, on health care, on cleaning up Congress.
The campaigns have turned into a foul din. Incumbents have defended themselves by raising fears about their rivals. The White House mantra—"taxes and terror”—is echoed in ad buys. Negative ads drive a race to the bottom, a campaign distemper that reflects the foul mood of voters.
Is there any theme to this stew? No matter what voters decide, the campaigns on both sides suggest a sea change in America. For years, Republicans have charged their opponents with being “too liberal for (fill in the state).” This year, the ads of both parties suggest that candidates may suffer more for being “too conservative for America."
The debate on the Iraq war illustrates the point. As the civil strife in Iraq has escalated, Democrats have escalated their opposition to the current course, and Republicans have grown increasingly uneasy about defending the president. Few call for attacking Iran or North Korea for their nuclear activities. Diplomacy trumps war; multilateralism beats unilateral action. The fiasco in Iraq has chastened the indispensable nation.
Big government no longer seems the “problem, not the solution,” to use Reagan’s formulation. Instead, incumbent Republicans are bragging about the prescription drug plan, the largest entitlement expansion since Medicare. They are advertising not how much they’ve cut government down, but how much pork they’ve brought home. Budget deficits are a challenger’s theme.
Support for privatization of Social Security is a liability, not a strength. And with few exceptions, Republican incumbents change the subject whenever the issue comes up.
Similarly, this big-oil Congress presents itself to voters as the champions of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Gas prices are coming down for the time being, but solar and ethanol futures and are up in the next Congress, no matter who wins.
Similarly, on social issues, conservatives are surprisingly muted. By all accounts, gay marriage initiatives seem to have lost their bite, perhaps dulled by the clamor around the Foley scandal. Instead, challengers have taken the offensive, embracing stem cell research and denouncing the posturing around the Terry Schiavo case. Republicans now worry not only about the enthusiasm of evangelicals soured by the Foley scandal but about losing socially moderate, country club voters turned off by doctrine supplanting science.
And in the wake of Abramoff and Halliburton, corruption and cronyism, candidates in both parties are denouncing pay-to-play politics. The best defense for incumbents is to charge the challenger with being in the pocket of special interest donors. Money is the mother’s milk of politics, but who is feeding whom will get more attention in the future. Cleaning up Congress is back on the agenda.
All this is reinforced by the current polls. Democratic hopes are raised by a new wave of populists—Bernie Sanders in Vermont, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Jon Tester in Montana, Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota. Conservative Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who still champions privatizing Social Security and vouchers for public schools, is lagging behind challenger Bob Casey, who is running on a basic bread-and-butter platform.
The “New Direction” Democratic agenda—raising the minimum wage, cutting drug prices, halving the cost of student loans, investing in alternative energy, protecting Social Security, revoking tax breaks for companies taking jobs abroad—garners such overwhelming public support that much of it will pass the next Congress no matter what happens in the election.
Conservatives outnumber liberals two to one in pre-election polls. And the term conservative still rates much more favorably than liberal. Even liberals like to say they support conservative family values. But the election campaigns of both Republicans and Democrats suggest that the future Congress will avoid being too conservative for America. Americans have decided that the right got it wrong. No matter which party wins in two weeks, conservatives will suffer a rebuke.
