Republican members slamming their own party hardly ever happens. Too often news magazines and the Sunday morning commentary shows must use operatives or ex-staffers or campaign workers turn commentators or journalists to pick apart the Republican party.
But when it comes to attacking democratic strategy or democrats themselves there is no shortage of members who shoot their hands in the air on BOTH sides of the isle.
So why is it that Democrats eat their own?
My frustration with began with Howard Dean. I am crazy about Howard. I'm excited that he has worked to put together a strategy that focuses on parties in all states not just in target states and he's been able to be a strong money maker for the party and for the members who use his services and his help.
That said, it took some time for consultants to get their hands on Dean's off the cuff comments:
"This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good." The Lawrence Journal World
Is one such example - and though many behind closed doors nodded and agreed with Dean's assement of the Republican Party being evil, more agreed that it wasn't something you let reporters hear you say.
One such member was Senator (now presumed presidential candidate) Joe Biden who hurriedly attacked Dean on Meet the Press saying Dean:
"doesn't speak for me ... and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats." Sen. Biden
This week's episode of George Stephanopoulos' news magazine sent off similar perspectives when commentator Sam Donaldson claimed that the more Democrats (citing Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)) go after Wal-Mart the more they lose the working class vote because Wal-Mart shoppers feel democrats are attacking them for shopping at the only place they can afford, leaving a whole group of traditionally high democratic supporters to vote for a beer drinking buddy rather than a leader who can help them most.
Consistently, I see democratic Governors in red states or Reps in red states that point to the national party - the John Kerry's the Howard Deans and Nancy Pelosi's and claim that they are not "Missouri Democrats" or "Kansas Democrats" or whatever your red state is.
A lot of that stems from the dirty word liberal. Consistently, used by any and every republican to label democrats, regardless of who they actually are, as unworthy of consideration because they are too extreme. I saw it this morning on Meet the Press - where Senate candidate Bob Casey debated Republican incumbent Rick Santorum. Santorum and Casey got into quite the scuffle of words at one point where finally Santorum realized he didn't have anything he could really attack Casey on without sounding petty or ridiculous - so, he reverted back to the standard "Your party is ..." and "liberal members" and "people in your party" all the while Casey sat (well prepped) sat saying "Its just me Rick" and "Lets talk about me" and "I'm the one you're running against here."
On the other side, I watched Santorum be slammed with his support of Bush. Russert went so far as to slap up Santorum's voting record on the screen showing that Rick was with Bush 95%+ of the time for the last 5 years including last year where he voted with the President 100% of the time. Russert quoted an article that talked about Santorum's position now - where he was 130 miles away from Bush when the president made a stop through to raise money for the republican candidate for Governor. And now Santorum is touting his differences between the White House and himself.
But when asked by Russert why he is pulling away from the president if he believes in him so much Santorum was all to eager to say that when he disagrees with the administration he has spoken to them about it. Casey asked why Santorum hasn't "denounced" Dick Chaney who disagrees with Santorum about things like sanctions for Iraq etc.. and Santorum claimed that you don't need to denounce someone just because you disagree with some things they say.
An interesting tune for Santorum to play when 5 previous he was all too eager to push Casey into bed with the more liberal wing of his party.
Another good example is of Heather Wilson in the NM-1st where we saw Wilson cozy up to President Bush in 2002 at a luncheon but now seems to be in the fight of her life against AG Patricia Madrid - going so far as to run ads claiming she is "independent" from the Bush White House.
Too, republican incumbent Jeb Bradley in the New Hampshire 1st who also joined the president on a New Hampshire tour back in 2003 - now suddenly forgot to put his pictures up of him and Bush or mention of his close ties to the president on his website... But he might have just forgotten.
Still - when asked the republicans will be the first to tell you that they stand by their president and their party.
In fact Sam Brownback could stand before the entire television viewing audience and say that the president was made of green cheese and every member of his party would line up to the morning shows to claim he was courageous to step up and say it.
Democrats distance themselves from someone who says something contrary to their policy, even if it's their own party chairman. I'm the same way, here I am using Biden my punching bag to illustrate a point, when in reality I could be talking about Biden's strength when it comes to the War on Terrorism.
The fact is - Republicans stand behind their own. I think this is a key reason Republicans are and will always be more organized. Democrats don't stay united. The more liberal members don't like the more conservative members and the more conservative members claim the more liberal members are not representative of their party.
Dissention in the ranks. Divided we fall. Grab whatever adage you prefer - the point is we're eating our own.
And the more we eat our own the more we fulfill the prophecy republicans assert: that we have no ideas of our own and have nothing but negative things to say - and Republicans can cite comments as being "those crazy democrats don't even stand behind their party or their own people, so why should you." It makes it difficult for red state democrats to align themselves with a strong national party - because there is no strong national party without strong national leaders who continually stand behind all members of its party no matter their absurdity or their differing opinions.
So - how do we fix this? How can we constantly back each other up when so often we disagree? If we back each other up does that mean we sell our ideas short? We compromise our principals?