AMAZING GRACE:

Analysis: Left Turn for Dems? (Martin Sieff, 11/23/2002, UPI)

Ever since Vietnam, more than three and a half decades ago, the Democrats have been the party of shooting themselves in the foot. The only two times they have regained the presidency in all those years has been when they flew the flag of "Me-too-ism." But their rout at the hands of George W. Bush on Nov. 5 shows that even this is a busted flush. They have no credible alternatives to the Republicans on economic issues and no alternatives at all on defense ones. Where can they possibly go from here?

Yet all is far from lost for the hapless Dems and the old cliché about it being darkest before the dawn could yet -- just -- be true for them. But for that to be the case, they must turn left rather than right, abandon the accommodation-ist policies they have followed for more than a quarter of a century and -- most difficult of all -- develop real principles and show real political courage in espousing them. [...]

[A]t least they can regain the honorable old losers' chalice they cherished in the days of Adlai Stevenson and even McGovern and Mondale that they might be eternal losers, but at least they were principled losers. If they continue to stand for something -- or a whole lot of little things -- at least they will retain their place as the second party in the venerable American political system.

But if the Dems instead retain the "all politics is local" stupid, losing mantra of late House Speaker Tip O'Neill, and if they fail to clean out the crony corruption that rotted them through the Clinton years, then they will be up the creek without a paddle. And when the political pendulum swings again, as inevitably it someday must, they will not be riding it as they still so complacently expect.

Mr. Sieff seems here to ignore the length of the pendulum swings in American politics. He seems to believe we're in the middle of a swing, when, in fact, we're at the start of one. Let's face it, no party can be said to be dominant if it can't put together the presidency with both houses of Congress for extended periods of time. This is something the Democrats did from Thomas Jefferson's presidency until the Civil War and that the GOP did after. Republican dominance lasted from 1860 to 1932, when FDR was elected along with a Democrat Congress. This phase of Democrat rule has been in its death throes of late, but as recently as 1994 we had a Democrat president and Congress and we weren't all that far away in 2000.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 24, 2002 2:08 PM