Several friends of mine who could be described as "moderate Republicans" voted Democratic this last cycle for one reason, and one reason only -- the Iraq war. They have adolescent children. They see the carnage, the sheer pointlessness of it all, the destroyed lives, the wasted resources. And they want it to END. These are the voters who occupy the "middle", the RIGHT side of that mythical "middle". These are the swing voters the Democratic leadership supposedly falls all over itself trying to appeal to. Voters the Democrats got last November because they showed signs of rationality about Iraq.
Two days ago, one of them asked me, "Well, are the Democrats going to DO anything, or what?" He told me he's not sorry he withheld his vote from the Republicans last cycle -- he's disgusted with them -- but that he's ready tp just throw up his hands and write off our entire political system. He's deeply disappointed with the Dems' inaction.
Inaction seems to be ingrained in the Democratic leadership's DNA. In the fall of 2002, the Democrats took the easy, "bipartisan" way out and gave Bush his blank check on Iraq. The environment was different back then, of course -- the public was out for blood after 9/11, and the Bush administration skillfully exploited those feelings and manipulated the situation to convince most Democrats that they should buy into the Iraq warmongering, despite the nonexistent evidence of any Saddam relationship with 9/11. And the Democrats did, for the most part; to protect their political hides, they went right along with the Bush lies and deceptions.
So how were the Democrats rewarded by the public in 2002 for their appeasement of Bush? They were rewarded by the public with smashing defeats across the board. It was, at best, a massive error in political judgment.
Four and a half years later, the situation has changed dramatically. The public has now overwhelmingly turned against the war. Bush is poison to most Americans, having dropped sixty points in the polls in the intervening time since the war began.
So what are the Democrats doing? Exactly the same thing they were doing in 2002. Hemming, hawing, fretting about swing voters, the mythical middle. Apparently oblivious to the fact that the swing voters are on their side now, and expressly voted them in to DO something about Iraq. Apparently oblivious to the advantages that come with being a MAJORITY.
Appeasement of Republicans didn't work for the Dems when the public was wrapped up in war fever. It's going to work even less well when the public's BEGGING the Democrats to DO SOMETHING about this war gone horribly, horribly wrong.
I had a hard time convincing my moderate Republican friends to cast their lot with the Dems in 2006. But I ultimately succeeded. And now my friends are waiting to see if the Dems deliver on their newfound, but rapidly disappearing, goodwill.
But how do I sell the Democratic Party in 2008 if they won't even get behind something as basic as the Murtha plan? How?