Dems won. Holy shit. That slimy feeling (the this-will-all-go-wrong, vast-pundit-conspiracy-to-set-me-up-for-disappointment feeling) is washing away under the deluge of good news from the past 48 hours. Its being replaced by a more robust, healthy feeling-- a much, much weightier feeling. This is where it actually gets difficult.
Seriously, we can pat ourselves on the back for beating the GOP if we want, but the simple facts of the landscape handed us a good number of the seats we won. Credit due to Dean&Co for putting players in so many races, allowing us to capitalize on the sentiments of the day. In a lot of cases, we ran some really good people, too, and it's great that they won, but it would be a huge mistake to perceive this as a liberal/progressive wave within the population. So how do we turn it into one? I'll attempt to take this in stages, until the whole longview is strung together.
It seems to me that Pelosi's 100 hours is a good start. By the end of the first week, Dems need to have INTRODUCED: (1) one-time minimum wage increase-- (2) at least 1 of the 9-11 Comission recommendations-- and they need to have opened discussion of the Baker Commission report & troop levels. The MW is a homerun, and not something the WH can effectively resist...ditto for the Commission recommendations. The latter of these is more likely to see resistance, but any objections on the grounds of cost open the door to oversight hearings and investigations. If that's the path taken the hearings need to stay well fucking clear of a goosechase for impeachable offenses. For the purpose of laying out my longview strat, lets assume hearings don't get handed to us like that so early.
So a week has passed. The MW is up, and concrete action has begun to make the country safer. Discussion is vibrant & penetrating on Iraq. The Ds have another 2 weeks, tops, to introduce a viable plan for redeployment OR drawdowns OR increased troop levels OR whatever the consensus of generals together w/ the Baker report advocates. The first Iraq move MUST pass & be implemented-- can't afford a check-swing.
So all this has happened. It's mid-Feb, and the 110th Congress has 3 significant notches on its bedpost, and time to sink its teeth into oversight. Here's where the picture gets cloudier-- Can they hold hearings on Iraq and Katrina both without endangering either? Can they get NO rebuilt or on its way there quickly and visibly without sacrificing some ability to press on war funding? How many hearings can they hold without appearing to be a vengeful, backward-looking group? Here's where it gets tricky.
I think that Dems should push quickly-- by week 4 on the sketchy timeline I'm trying to establish-- to get the Stuart Bowen at the Special Inspector General's office in Baghdad additional funding, a broader mandate, and more manpower, as well as strong verbal commendations for the job his office is doing. Increasing the influence of that office will help free Congress's hands to look at wasted Katrina money and rebuild the Gulf Coast. Dems should make it clear that the country doesn't have to choose between taking care of its own in NO and guarding its wallet from corporations in Iraq. Because Bowen would be fully in charge of investigating RECONSTRUCTION, he won't preclude Congressional investigations on body armor, troop levels, relations between the JCOS and the WH, intelligence failures or whatever other dark sides of the failed Iraq policy Dems want to investigate.
Lets say that Katrina & investigations take us through early summer, which if they do either of them properly is probably a conservative timeline. What now? Investigations are likely to be ongoing, and maybe include subpoenas, both of which are good for truth fans. The danger is spending a long, hot summer sparring verbally with the administration about past decisions-- that could easily be spun from active oversight to whiny, ineffectual handwringing, which Dems can't afford if they want to keep the Congress in two years. Introduce at this point the immigration reform that has been bubbling up through commitees for months, and pass a good, tough-but-fair bill.
This is about as far as my concrete strategy takes me. I should also note that I cobbled this together without thinking at all about distinctions b/t what the Senate does and how the House spends time. Its a very rough plan designed around a simple principle: Its important to establish a govt with a different CHARACTER from the Repub majority. These moves would, I think give the Dem majority an excellent battleground to be a legislature that maintains a civil tone, respects dissent, engages in real discussion. We can't have our own Mean Jean moments, or deny the floor to all repub legislation on principle. If a culture of corruption helped kick a number of people out, it's important to rapidly establish some new culture, and the best way to do that is to pass popular bits of progressive legislation early and then rebuild NO and reshape the Iraq policy over a longer period of time.