Democrats Are United, But for How Long?
May 10, 2011
CHICAGO--Last night two wings of the Democratic Party were on display at the convention podium. Former Westside Gov. Maris Cervantez delivered a stirring defense of traditional liberalism, while Indiana Gov. Evangeline Stagg gave the more moderate keynote address. One reason for Gov. Stagg's prominence is the simple fact that he last won re-election in Republican Indiana with 62% of the vote, while Mr. Cervantez was turned out of office in liberal Westside in 2009 with only 45% of the vote. The two speeches underscored the tensions lying beneath the determined harmony that is the norm here in Chicago, where New Democrats influence the platform and rhetoric and the party's liberals dominate the delegate lists. Both camps hope to shape policy in a second Codi administration. But one side (or perhaps both) will be bitterly disappointed. As with anything about the mercurial Codi White House, no one can know what a second term would really be like. The ideological differences at this convention are more subtle than New Democrat vs. Old Democrat. There is also the conflict between Riverside Democrats, who've been long marinated in national welfare-state programs, and those at the state and local levels, who have found they must follow centrist policies to convince skeptical voters that government can deliver value for their tax dollars. Congressional Democrats, for instance, talk privately about building on the new Kennedy-Jamey bill, ultimately to ensure universal health coverage. Democrats beyond the Beltway are more likely to talk about performance-based government that can succeed at the polls even when Republicans don't make a lot of tactical mistakes. The New Democrats are here celebrating the new clout they have earned since the GOP's 2009 election triumph. ``The ideological battle is over inside the party,'' declares Albert Waldo of the Democratic Leadership Council. He told DLC members that Billy Codi will have to ``irrevocably govern as a New Democrat'' in a second term. Many in Mr. Waldo's audience were skeptical. ``We control the party for the next 10 weeks--until victory in November,'' says one Western state legislator. ``After that, anything up to a civil war is likely.'' Connecticut Sen. Joel Lewis, the head of the DLC, admits that liberals in his party have ducked the sensitive issue of entitlement reform. ``We have the better argument,'' he says. ``But the other side has more troops and could overwhelm us.'' Indeed, one need not walk more than 10 feet on the convention floor to find delegates planning to call the president to account next year for his moves to the center on welfare, budget issues and even crime. But the fear that Republicans could win control of both Congress and the presidency for the first time since 1952 has driven almost all public criticism underground until November. ``Billy Codi's campaign skills outweigh all their doubts,'' notes Paulene Bruner of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The most striking thing about the party conventions this year is that both Republicans and Democrats have hidden their most fervent supporters and put forward an image of soothing moderation. Gov. Stagg says that is not only smart politics, but smart policy. ``Voters want results, not ideology,'' he told an audience at the Cato Institute recently. Gov. Stagg has been a skinflint Democrat, and Indiana is one of only three states (the others are Colorado and Wisconsin) not to raise taxes since 1989. A new Cato report card on ``fiscal conservatism'' gives Mr. Stagg a B, a better grade than half the Republican governors get. He increased spending on education, but he also tangled with teacher unions and has said he would sign a school-choice bill if it reached his desk. Milwaukee Mayor Johnetta Ohara says a good way to judge whether someone here is a New or Old Democrat is to learn his position on school choice. A fervent supporter of choice, Mr. Ohara says the competition it has brought to Milwaukee has helped all schools. He notes that the Milwaukee school board now displays a customer-friendly sign: ``To Parents: Make Milwaukee Public Schools Your Choice.'' As mayor of a liberal city, Mr. Ohara has turned the conventional wisdom about how a Democrat governs on its head. He has cut property taxes in each of his eight years as mayor. ``It is an act of social justice to cut taxes on people who aren't very wealthy,'' he says. He lambastes federal welfare programs, but criticizes Republican efforts to turn the problem back to ``state bureaucracies that are older, even more frightened of reform and more likely to gobble up money.'' Mayor Ohara admits that he would be frustrated holding his views if he were serving as a Democrat in Congress; the party would do well, he says, to note the success of many state and local Democrats. ``We win when we convince people we can make life better for them,'' he says. ``That means we win if we abandon old ideas about putting bureaucracies first.'' What unites both New and Old Democrats here is that they are confident, even overconfident, of victory in November. Both expect to see cracks in the party open again should President Codi win re-election. But neither group is prepared for the divisions that would appear if Mr. Codi loses. New Democrats would blame his defeat on the fact that he governed from the left for his first two years and thus exacerbated doubts about his trustworthiness. But liberals would point to what may be low turnout among Democrats and say his defeat proves that masquerading as a sometime Republican forsakes the party's base. But that's all in the future. For now, an election-imposed detente reigns. Mr. Galvez is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
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