Where Did the Real Democrat Party Go?

JFK and Hary Truman would be called 'right wing extremists' by today's Democrats

As one surveys the current leadership of the Democrat party, one has to wonder what happened. This was once the party of Harry Truman and JFK. Nearly destroyed by LBJ, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy.

The most unlikely of Democrat Presidents, an unknown governor from the small 'red' state of Arkansas resurrected the party. Running as a "new kind of Democrat, Bill Clinton saved the party and shocked the pundits and the conventional wisdom by beating a popular centrist in 1992.

Leftists in his tent, most notably his wife, tried to destroy the party again by maintaining their course of the left wing, big government tax and spend past. Leaders of congress kept him to the left, and the Democrats suffered the worst midterm defeat in modern history in 1994. Democrats seemed destined for the ash heap of history.

But Clinton, ever the savvy politician aided by the brilliant strategist Dick Morris (he now claims he regrets this!), tacked to the middle and passed welfare reforms and a series of corporate reforms that allowed him to claim the middle ground.

Then the Republicans rode to the rescue and nominated a 'moderate' who ran a listless campaign, giving Clinton a second term and breathing life back into the Democrat corpse.

One day, people may look back and consider it the supernova days of the party. The last bright burst in the death of a once great party. And the reason is simple. The failed ideas of the past continue to be presented as new. Big government, tax and spend liberalism.

Barrack Obama was elected in 2008, claiming to represent a new type of politics. The post-partisan problem solving people first. An unknown, running on empty platitudes of "hope and change" (echoes of Clinton's 'man from hope?') who promised all things to all people.

But unlike Clinton, who was pushed left by party and Congressional leaders, Obama started on the left. The uber far left. And is joined there by the current crop of tax and spend liberal leaders.

Now to be sure there is still a JFK wing of the Democrat party, and these leaders no more speak for them than Olympia Snowe speaks for most Republicans. But while Snowe is a minor player in the Republican party, Pelosi and Reid are leading the Democrats in Washington.

And more and more, it looks like they are leading them off the electoral cliff. As Dan Henniger put it in his excellent Wall Street Journal Piece (linked here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/10/29/obama_and_the_old_hat_people_98928.html)"It's starting to look like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are leading the Donner Party."

Now to paraphrase Twain, reports of the Democrat party's demise are premature. The Republicans have shown an incredible ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Internecine battles are rampant as the 'old guard' tries to go back to the many times failed policy of moving to center, hoping a sort of centrist or moderate candidate, a 'democrat lite,' is the only way to be elected.

And the mainstream media has shown it is reliably Democrat, carrying the water for Obama and health care reform and for any other liberal big government policy du jour. And one can predict that the MSM story line on November 3 and beyond will surely be 'Republican party split, just look at NY-23,' regardless of the fact that it looks like Virginia will be a GOP landslide and New Jersey, a reliably blue state that gave Obama a 10% victory turned out to be a battle royale. (Your humble author predicts a slim Corzine win, but even that is a catastrophe for Dems.

But as Henninger puts it, 'old hat' tax and spend, big government bureaucratic policies, in an era of the internet and a customizable world, will not sit well with the youth who don't remember FDR or the sacrifice of the 'greatest generation.'

If things continue as is, the Democrat party is destined to suffer huge losses in 2010 and 2012. But more importantly, their dissembling and the fawning of the sycophantic press could damage their credibility for several political generations.

Copyright 2009 Reprint permitted with the following citation:
TJPaine
Un^Common Sense
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