Now that the dust has settled, we know that President Bush was the winner of the 2004 election, by a popular vote that has given him and his entire Republican Party a mandate that hasn’t been seen in recent history.
The Problem Now
Clearly, there must be cooperation. Besides the fact that the Democrats have little choice now but to cooperate, it is in their best interest to do so. Isn't it better to say, “Fine, we'll vote for your bill, but can it include this…?” than to say, “No, we won't vote for your bill, in fact we'll filibuster it” and still end up losing the battle anyway? Isn't it better to say, “We support the president, but here's what we disagree with…” than to say, “The president is a dunce, incompetent, immoral, a liar…”? The former responses will likely evoke a more collaborative response from the Republican majority and a more benevolent response from the American people, but the latter responses will only cause the Republican majority to be reluctant to work with the Democratic minority, and the latter responses will also cause more bitter division in favor of the Republicans among the American electorate.
The good news is that the president has given every indication that he plans to work with Democrats. He has opened his arms to those who supported his opponent, often with venomous attacks against him, and asked for their support. Where compromise can be reached, the president has promised that he will do everything in his power to reach it. In his words and actions, he has vowed to live up to his promise to be a unifier rather than a divider.
The problem now for the Democratic Party is that while there will be a strong temptation to return to politics as usual, politics as usual clearly have not worked for the party. Democrats must have a party that is influenced more by the seven virtues than by the seven vices. The entire country needs a political system that is influenced more by prudence than by indiscretion, by justice than by inequity, by fortitude than by cowardice, by temperance than by excess, by faith than by doubt, by hope than by despair, and by charity than by spite. The Democrats must reclaim their roots, the ideal that our government can reach out to the working man and lift him up, rather than basing the party's political success on bad news for the American worker. The party must embrace the American dream, rather than counting on its failure in order to make gains in Congress and in the White House. Above all, the party must return to a view of the world that is based on God, who is the foundation of all that is good and the hope of all societies. The Democratic Party will have no political future in our country until it remembers what the American dream is all about. Democrats can have no future until they recall that our republic is one nation that really is under God, truly indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, born and unborn.
© Copyright 2004 Catholic Exchange
The Wrong Messenger
Not since 1904 and the re-election of McKinley has a Republican president been re-elected with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress. We have never seen the United States so dominated by Republican Red — it appears that the country has become a Red Country, with only a few Blue States remaining on the fringes.
Although I decided to vote for President Bush, I remain a Democrat, and I voted for local Democrats who were endorsed by Ohio Right to Life. As a Democrat, it has saddened me to see the Republican Party granted such a strong mandate, and it has saddened me to see the biggest Democratic defeat in anyone's recent memory. Indeed, it seems that we have seen not only a presidential win for the Republicans, but the beginning of the end for the Democratic Party.
Not only has Sen. John Kerry lost the election, not only will Sen. Edwards no longer have a voice in the Senate, but Sen. Tom Daschle, the Senator from South Dakota who was also the Democratic minority leader, has also been defeated and his seat taken by Senator-elect John Thune. It appears that Daschle will be replaced by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), a man described as extremely soft-spoken, signaling that the Democratic minority in the Senate will not present much opposition to the Republican majority.
This leaves many Democrats, even those who voted for President Bush, wondering: What went wrong?
The first thing that went wrong is that the Democratic Party chose the wrong candidate, for the wrong country, at the wrong time. Sen. Kerry simply could not energize the Democratic base, which is rather diverse. He couldn't energize the very liberal Left of the party, which previously backed former Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT). He couldn't energize the anti-war and pro-gay rights factions of the party, which previously backed Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). He couldn't energize the labor Democrats, who previously favored Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-MO). He couldn't energize the Democrats concerned about national security and the war on terrorism, who previously favored guys like retired Gen. Wesley Clark or Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). He couldn't energize black Democrats, who tended to favor Rev. Al Sharpton and former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL). He couldn't energize female Democrats, who tended to favor Moseley-Braun, and even candidates who weren't running like Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-NY) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). He couldn't energize Jewish Democrats, who liked Sen. Joseph Lieberman. He couldn't energize young Democrats, who wanted Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) or Rep. Dennis Kucinich in the White House.
I could go on and on: he couldn't energize Midwestern Democrats who wanted Gephardt, Clark or Edwards; he couldn't energize Southern Democrats, who may have gone for Gephardt or Edwards; he couldn't energize Democrats who opposed the Iraq War because he voted to authorize the use of force, but he couldn't energize Democrats who supported the Iraq War because he later changed his mind and voted against the $87 billion to pay for the war. The list seems endless.
I have always held these reservations about Sen. Kerry, always seen this problem, but always remained silent because I did not want to speak against the man that the Democratic Party saw fit to nominate. Now that the race is over, and now that Sen. Kerry has lost as I assumed that he would, I can remain silent no longer — because the future of the Democratic Party depends on people like me speaking out about what we believe the party must do in the future.
What the party must have is a candidate who stands for something. We've all heard the phrase that it's good to be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains fall out. That was the problem with Sen. Kerry. He was open-minded enough to vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq, but then he was open-minded enough to embrace pacifism and vote against the $87 billion needed to fund the war. He was open-minded enough to enlist in Vietnam when others were trying to run away from it, but then he was open-minded enough to come back and be one of its strongest opponents. To vote for No Child Left Behind, but then to complain about some of the items in it. To vote for the Patriot Act, but then to strongly oppose it. To say he believes that life begins at conception, but then that a woman has the right to take that life away. He was open-minded enough to say he believes that “gay marriage” was wrong, but then he was open-minded enough to oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment and support the Massachusetts Supreme Court's decision that preventing homosexuals from marrying was unconstitutional. The problem for Sen. Kerry was that voters had trouble discerning what exactly it was that he stood for.
Why the Democratic Party chose such an ambiguous candidate to represent the party in what we've been told and told again was the most important election of our lifetimes defies explanation, especially when all of the other candidates clearly stood for something — even Sen. Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. I believe that even had Americans disagreed with what these candidates stood for, they still would have preferred them over the ambiguity of Sen. Kerry. I believe that if we'd had a Richard Gephardt, a Joe Lieberman, a Wesley Clark or even a John Edwards as the Democratic presidential candidate, we could be looking at a different result in this election. Pro-abortion? Yes, all of them, with the possible exception of Rep. Kucinich, who had a rather high rating from National Right to Life. Pro-gay rights? Yes, all of them, to some extent. Pro-gun control? Yes, all of them, to some extent. But not as ambiguous. And I do believe that was one of the major factors that cost Sen. Kerry the election.
The Wrong Message
The other big problem for the Democrats is the message they're presenting, and this is a persistent problem that's only getting worse. It seems that as the country approaches a more and more oppositional position toward issues like abortion, gay marriage and the removal of God from our schools, the Democrats take a stronger position in favor of those same issues. Sen. Kerry, in his ambiguity, tried very hard to ignore all of those issues during this campaign. It didn't work. Exit polls show that 22% of the voters asked cast their votes based on moral values, and since the exit polls clearly favored Sen. Kerry, that means that the 22% figure could actually be much higher. At the exact same time on the exact same ballots, eleven states passed amendments to their state constitutions that have effectively banned “gay marriage.”
While many voters liked what the Democratic Party had to say about the Iraq War, national security and domestic policy, they simply did not like the party's social liberalism. America has begun to move beyond the social liberalism of the Baby Boomer generation (and even the Baby Boomers have begun to move away from it), and if the Democratic Party does not make some attempt to move with it, it will fade into history and new parties will arise to take its place. This is a hard reality that the Democrats must face as even their minority shrinks in the Congress and a president with extremely low approval ratings wins the popular vote by an overwhelming majority of almost four million people.
It's clear that one of the first things the Democratic Party must do is back away from their strong position in favor of abortion on demand. They must back away from strong opposition to partial-birth abortion bans and parental notification laws, which are designed only to limit abortion, not to overturn it. They must stop promising NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America that they will give a pro-choice litmus test to those they will appoint to the federal courts and the Supreme Court. They must stop the filibusters designed to stop the appointments of pro-life judges and justices. They must stop opposing legislation like the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which had nothing to do with abortion, simply because they don't want a legal precedent that will declare the unborn child a human being. It has become abundantly clear that they must back off their total, unabashed support for abortion on demand. NARAL and Planned Parenthood will no longer be able to either aid or hinder their chances of being elected, and it's time for them to realize this and react.
It's also clear that the Democrats are going to have to back off their support for “gay marriage”. While it may not be necessary for them to support the Federal Marriage Amendment, it is going to be necessary for them to stop opposing legislation like the Defense of Marriage Act, which does not prevent states from legalizing “same-sex marriage” and civil unions, but does keep states which oppose gay marriage from having to recognize the legality of “same-sex marriages” from other states.
Finally, it's clear that Democratic judicial appointees are going to have to stop being overwhelmingly activist. No more judges and justices who will rule that saying “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional; no more judges and justices who will rule that we can't pray in our schools; no more judges and justices who will keep the Ten Commandments out of our courthouses and Nativity scenes out of our parks; and no more judges and justices who will rule that the right to privacy gives Terri Schiavo's husband the right to kill her. People aren't going for it anymore, and it's time for the Democratic Party to wake up and realize it, and to adapt.
The simple truth is that the socially liberal message of the Democratic Party, even when it is played down as it was during this campaign, does not set well with the American people. While it's not necessary for the Democrats to become as socially conservative as the Republicans are, it is necessary for the Democratic Party to move away from the left and back toward the middle, as in previous times. The choice is very simple: move toward the middle, or face extinction.
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