How Democrats can miss the central things going on in terms of politics outside of their own choir, and repeatedly play directly play into their opponents framing, is hard to fathom. But they can do it.
We hate the current health care bill, for reasons to be skipped here. But we agree that given the enormous sums that are wasted on health care in this country, the huge lapses that occur in care anyway, the enormous and unnecessary insurance company costs and de facto intrusions (if you give your health care money to your health insurance company you don’t have it for the test you needed yesterday that they deny or play around with for for weeks) between doctor and patient, and the absolutely gargantuan government expenditures on health care, reforming our current system seems like a good idea.
Just not via a bad idea.
However, Lanny Davis has penned an editorial for the Wall Street Journal Editorial pages, which is to objective and non partisan analysis what the San Diego Chargers are to winning clutch playoff games at home against a lesser Jets team the past ten years.
This editorial is in some ways so bad, it defies description. We’ll let provocateur Glenn Greenwald explain:
Last night, Evan Bayh blamed the Democrats’ problems on “the furthest left elements,” which he claims dominates the Democratic Party — seriously. And in one of the dumbest and most dishonest Op-Eds ever written, Lanny Davis echoes that claim in The Wall St. Journal: ”Blame the Left for Massachusetts” (Davis attributes the unpopularity of health care reform to the “liberal” public option and mandate; he apparently doesn’t know that the health care bill has no public option [someone should tell him], that the public option was one of the most popular provisions in the various proposals, and the “mandate” is there to please the insurance industry, not “the Left,” which, in the absence of a public option, hates the mandate; Davis’ claim that “candidate Obama’s health-care proposal did not include a public option” is nothing short ofan outright lie).
We don’t agree with the “furthest left” elements, whatever they are. But blaming the Democrats problems on the “furthest left” elements (unless, by blame, Bayh means the inability and unwillingness to connect with, show and sell to American without presuming what America thinks, feels, perceives or assumes) is like one time Arizona Representative (and future McCain opponent) J.D. Hayworth blaming the recent economic collapse on George Soros or Chuck Schumer.
The Democrats problems come down to two things. One, Democrats allow their opponens to control, shape, and frame the debate. Two, Democrats don’t even tend to realize what this entails, or that they do it. And if we had to add a third, it would be Democrats resistance to what this idea actually means.
And because Democrats seem to be constantly afraid of what their opponents will say (largely because they allow their opponents to control the debate, but they miss this), and afraid of saying what they believe, why they believe it, and showing and selling it to the country. As a result, they pass piece of crap more government control no underlying problem solving pieces of legislation because they think that that is what is going to get them re-elected, when the irony is, it is what is going to get their opponents re-elected.
Update: Lanny Davis says the election was not about the candidate, but about the message. Timothy Egan, writing today in the NY Times (covered here) points out the following:
Coakley belittled the retail politics of her opponent, who stood in the cold of a Bruins hockey game at Fenway Park, thus disparaging three great New England institutions a single two-second sound bite. It follows, then, that she didn’t know that Curt Schilling, the Boston pitcher who bled through his sox, was a Red Sox fan. Stealing a page from Mike Dukakis when he decided to spend August mowing his lawn while the 1988 presidential contest slipped away from him, her campaign essentially went dark with a double-digit lead. And she did what no Kennedy had ever done — she took the voter for granted.
Effectively showing how one’s opponent is either deceiving and misleading voters, or profoundly wrong, and either way can’t be trusted, is the most valuable thing one can do in politics. Belittling one’s opponents, in a way that also impugns some of the very target voters that need to be reached, as if one is speaking only to an audience that already agrees with everything one has to say and is full support, is one of the worst things one can do. Democrats do it all the time.
But what about Davis’ point about the message itself? He writes, of the Democrats message, “How is it that so few people have heard that message?” He is right on that point. And we have made it ourselves, here.
But Davis also writes:
In the last several months, the minority congressional Republicans have dominated the message on health care—and stamped on the Democratic Party the perception that we stand for big government, higher taxes, and health insecurity when it comes to Medicare.
This comes from two things. First, nothing to do with the issue, but who has controlled the issue. Once again Democrats opponents. This is the doing of all Democrats, and the DNC, not just the “left.” Second, it is because the bill has in fact in some ways become these things, while at the same time it has failed to address the root of the problem.
And why is that? Because, ironically, the alleged “non left” wing of the party has demanded these concessions in order to get re-elected (they think) and thus in fact turned the bill into just such a spectacle of bigger government, rather than just consist of the empty rhetoric that had predated the calls for legitimate health care reform, which were based upon neither liberal nor conservative principles at heart, and could just as easily have been used to lower government costs and wastes, as to provide, heaven to mercy “universal” coverage for people.
Ironically, the supposedly more “liberal” option, which was that if the government was going to try and curb costs and expend funds, it should provide an option to insurance companies was more popular than this ridiculous mandate as to our how we address our own care — rendered even worse by the simple fact that most health insurance coverage in this country, presently, both costs a fortune, and is a veritable abomination of control, inconsistencies, forced interjection between doctor and patient, and endless paperwork and needless hassles.
But it was this line from Davis’ piece that really makes one want to tear their hair out:
We liberals need to reclaim the Democratic Party with the New Democrat positions of Bill Clinton and the New Politics/bipartisan aspirations of Barack Obama—a party that is willing to meet half-way with conservatives and Republicans even if that means only step-by-step reforms on health care and other issues that do not necessarily involve big-government solutions.
“We liberals”? Who is he talking to? Putting that issue aside, his proscription is to let the far right define the terms, and then accomodate to the far right’s demands, rather than simply sell, show, explain and frame, their own position, beliefs, and reasonings. This fits in perfectly with the absolute donkeyness of this, regarding this whole heath care debacle, in the first place, where Democrats have managed to allow their opponents to take control of the Senate, effectively, with just over 40 out of 100 member, when for close to eight years, Democrats themselves couldn’t accomplish this with larger numbers than Republicans have right now.
Real Donkeys, the kinds with four legs, ought to be hiding in holes in shame.
And then Davis plays right into this right wing framing of liberals and Democrats of favoring “big government” solutions. Republican consultants would have paid Davis money to write this, if they had to. And he (presumably) did it for them, for free.
But Davis, worst of all, misses the fact that it is the current bill which is a perfect example of big government that mandates and intrudes, while doing little in return to protect freedoms or reduce costs at the same time, and that had the bill been better written — exactly what Davis, backwardly, seems to think would have made it more unpalatable — it would have accomplished far more, with far less infringment and legitimate complaint of big government overtone, and been far more politically successful for Democrats, throughout the country, and our national discussion.
This is why, dear reader, Democrats lose, and spend most of their time, complaining about the ramifications of those losses, despite the fact that more people in America are Democrats than Republicans.