TWELVE YEARS ago, when Bill Clinton became U.S. president, Democrats controlled Congress and the White House. Eight years later, when he handed the White House keys to his Republican successor, George W. Bush, Republicans had taken back full control of Congress. Along the way, there were a few ups, but by and large the last decade has been one of consistent decline for U.S. Democrats.
What has happened at the top of the political system is mirrored at the bottom. Grassroots organising by the Republican Party has built a formidable electoral machine, and has brought the party to near-parity with Democrats in voter registration. Even if one believes the arguments that dirty-dealing secured Republican votes in Ohio, the fact remains that the party is mobilising supporters as never before.
LITTLE CAUSE FOR COMFORT
In contrast, things are not going well for the Democrats. They lost ground in both the House of Representatives and Senate this year. Alarm bells that the Supreme Court will now tilt rightwards as President Bush fills it with conservative judges is premature: it is not obvious that there will be any vacancies during his second term, and besides, Democrats still have the requisite number of Senate seats to filibuster nominees they oppose.
Nevertheless, there is little cause for comfort. The next round of elections is just two years off. More Democratic than Republican senators will be up for re-election, and many of them occupy vulnerable seats. If the Democrats continue losing ground in 2006 and 2008, then the possibility of a full-blown rightward tilt in the U.S. will come into view.
DEBATING REASONS FOR KERRY'S FAILURE
The morning after last week's elections, post-mortems began in Democratic ranks. Major players in the party began debating what went wrong. John Kerry seemed a strong candidate, he ran a good campaign (at least in the latter stages) and the party beat the bushes to get its people to the polls. In the conventional wisdom of Democratic politics, it was a guaranteed recipe for success. But it failed.
The usual division of opinion has once again emerged in the party. On one side are the centrists, New Democrats, triangulators in short, those close to Bill Clinton. They can't blame Kerry's loss on a bad campaign the way they did with Al Gore in 2000, for one simple reason: by the end, they were running it, going so far as to drag their hero from his convalescence to go campaigning with John Kerry (apparently to no avail).
On the other side are the leftists. They blame Democratic setbacks not on too little of what the Clintonistas want, but on the Clintonistas themselves. Indeed, some of them, those who like to say that they come from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, say Bill Clinton is himself the problem. In their reasoning, the Clintonista approach of softening the Democratic message to broaden its appeal is what has turned the party into a soup of "flip-floppers". There is no coherent message, they say, and certainly not one that flows from the party's deep roots on the left of American politics. Karl Rove, their arch-nemesis, has shown them that the key to success is not to reach for the uncommitted centre, but to excite your core supporters with an exciting message.
That is not how the Clintonistas see it. Their central belief, as articulated by Bill Clinton, is that the centre of American politics has shifted permanently as a result of profound economic and demographic changes. The old Democratic way is dead, they say. If America has moved to the right, then the Democrats will have to move there too. The problem in this approach, though, is that the Republicans already occupy the rightward ground. I'm not sure that the British model, in which Tony Blair's Labour Party managed to displace the Conservatives, will be replicated in the U.S. The Republicans are a far cry from being the stale, tired Tories.
But I am willing to bet that the Clintonistas will win the debate, for now. Already they are positioning for 2006, and I would put money on Hilary being their presidential nominee in 2008. I also doubt they will deliver. Get used to Republican politics. I think it will be around for a good while.
John Rapley is a senior lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
John Rapley
FOREIGN FOCUS
