There have been many reasons cited to explain the Democratic Party's lack of success in recent election cycles. Poor candidates, unclear messages, inability to respond to GOP "attacks", and not understanding or sharing the values of average Americans are just some of the causes they have been cited.
Another issue that seems to once again be rearing its head is the absence of on overall perspective on the political landscape. You might also call it a lack of strategic vision. While Democrats are able to focus like a laser beam on individual races, many of the party faithful appear unable or unwilling to consider the broader implications of the outcomes of these contests.
The effort to oust Joe Liebermann in Connecticut is one recent example. Keith Ellison's victory in the 5th District primary on Tuesday another.
When you step back at the larger political picture, Ellison's victory is not good for the DFL. If 5th District Democrats had selected Erlandson or Junge, they would likely have easily held Sabo's seat with a comfortable margin and the race would have attracted little attention outside the district.
Now, it's being discussed on national conservative talk radio shows (yesterday I heard Bennett, Medved, and Hewitt all spend time on Keith Ellison) and will be the focus of local media attention from now until November. The Minnesota GOP has come up with a "party of Ellison" tag for the DFL and I expect to hear that a lot in the next couple of months.
I still believe that Ellison will win, but if anything emerges from his past that hasn't come out yet or more dubious ties are revealed, it could get interesting. The national attention that the race has attracted should also help Republican Alan Fine raise more money and may force the DFL to invest resources into a contest that they otherwise could have taken for granted.
Reflecting on the primary results on Wednesday, local Democrat blogger Flash from Centristy was able to see the forest for the trees:
But the disappointment I have is not that my AG candidate lost, but the shortsightedness of the 5th district voters. That deserves its own post, which may go up later today. It will be my only post on the race since because of those results, the DFL now has their work cut out for them all the way up the ticket.
When Flash did expand his thoughts about Ellison in a post called It's About the Baggage, he was set upon by his political compatriots, who couldn't believe that he didn't share their excitement about Ellison's victory and their desire to anoint him as the next Wellstone. Be sure to read all the comments to get a flavor of where they're coming from.
A couple of things need to be pointed out to these easily excitable Ellison partisans:
1. I think I can speak for most Republicans when I say that, from a strictly political position, we are indeed happy that Ellison won. As a resident of the 5th District, I gotta admit to having some qualms about Ellison representing me in Congress. But there isn't some vast dezinformatsiya campaign underway to pretend that we like the fact that he won when in reality we're crushed and demoralized by his victory.
2. Again, I think I can safely speak for most Republicans when I say that we are not afraid of Keith Ellison. In fact, like Paul Wellstone before him, we crave having opponents like Keith Ellison. It makes it very easy to differentiate yourself from an Ellison or a Wellstone as opposed to an Erlandson or a Sabo. Guys like Ellison and Wellstone stir up a lot of passion on both sides. This can be used to rally supporters, but also to rally opposition.
Like the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War, the hard left wing of the Democratic Party (which increasingly seems to be the majority) appears more focused on using their resources and energy to win symbolic battles instead of advancing their party's broader strategic objectives. Let's hope they continue to follow that formula for failure.
UPDATE: I almost forgot to point out one of my favorite comments at Centrisity defending Keith Ellison:
His offenses that Republicans play up, as seen by almost all people (who are not, I remind you, followers of politics), are that he has unpaid traffic tickets (as do most of us), he had tax and campaign-finance issues (understood given his wife's health), and he did some dumb things 20 years ago as a college kid.
No, "most of us" do not have unpaid traffic tickets. And "most of us" do not excuse campaign finance violations and a failure to pay taxes because of family health problems. Finally, "most of us" probably did some dumb things as college kids. Like drinking too much, skipping class, and perhaps being a little too free-wheeling in our amorous pursuits. But "most of us" were not writing articles defending leaders of extremist groups with virulently anti-Semitic beliefs.
No comments:
Post a Comment