On November 3, 2004, I was miserable. I'm sure many of you shared my feelings. Not only did we lose the Presidency after building up our hope with positive-looking polls, but we also fared poorly in the Congressional elections.
The non-stop talking heads of the MSM and the smug right-wing noise machiners rubbed salt in our wounds by proclaiming, in almost every full sentence they could muster, that the Democratic Party would from now on be a "permanent minority" party. Let's look back on that for a second, and then turn our attention to the present, and the future.
The "permanent minority" meme had legs in November 2004. Even Democratic spokespeople, in their self-flagellating glumness, repeated the phrase. A Google search for
"permanent minority" + democrat turns up almost 60,000 listings. Up until Spring of 2006 it was still in wide use. As
Tom Delay said when he "retired" from Congress:
DeLay said the Democrat Party has no agenda, no solutions -- "all they've got is the strategy of personal destruction and character assassination; and it hasn't worked in the past, it's not going to work in the future. They are a permanent minority party."
In fact, a little research digs up the Democrat-as-permanent-minority meme was around even before 2004. In Sept 2003, Roll Call wrote:
While House Democrats acknowledge that their Caucus is unlikely to reverse its eight-year minority status in the immediate term, they are not resigning themselves to becoming a permanent second-tier party.
...
While not there yet, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said House Democrats are concerned about becoming the permanent minority. Because of that, he said, House Democrats are working harder than ever, rallying the troops to stick together on votes and throwing up procedural roadblocks to battle the GOP on the floor. "We don't have anything to lose," he said.
Because we fought like we didn't have anything to lose, we won. And we have proven the "permanent minority" naysayers wrong.
We didn't do it by moving to the right, as some allege.
We didn't do it with character assassination.
We didn't do it because the Republicans shot themselves in the feet, with Foley and Abramoff and Haggard.
We did it by standing up for our ideals.
We did it by working together. By being tougher.
We did it by speaking truth.
And now, we have begun to push the Republican party into permanent minority status. They are in their last throes. I truly believe it is true, and this is why...
It's not just the current "deep blue" map of New England and the mid-Atlantic states. It's also that the hard numbers for the next two elections are deeply in our favor, and because the American people like what we stand for and what we will accomplish.
I am not sure that we will win the Presidency in 2008. John McCain will be hard to beat.
But as I see it, whether or not we win the Presidency in 2008, the Congress is ours to keep. Nancy Pelosi will be a very smart leader, and I am sure that the things the House Democrats will do in the next 2 years will insure that we continue to hold the House, and possibly gain even more seats in the next election.
Moreover, the Senate seats we've won this week in Montana, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Missouri are ours to keep until 2012 if not much, much longer. In 2008, I am confident we will solidify our majority in the Senate, to at least the 55-45 majority the Republicans enjoyed in the last Senate. This is because there will be many more vulnerable Republican senators up for re-election than Democrats. From Wikipedia:
Of the seats up for election [in 2008], 21 are held by Republicans and 12 by Democrats; this reflects the major Republican victory in 2002, and the large majority in this class may be difficult for Republicans to maintain in 2008.
Estimates I've seen peg the number of would-be contested races in 2008 at approximately 9 Repug seats to 2 Dem seats. If we take just less than half of their tight seats in the next Senate election, we would govern with the 55-45 majority that they have, up until recently, enjoyed. This is such a strong Senate majority that up until recently the Rs threatened to get rid of minority rights by using their scary "nuclear option." Good thing for them they didn't.
This kind of crushing majority for the Dems and "permanent minority" status for the Repugs has begun today and is just two years away from being solidified for the very long term.
It might be hypocritical to state on the one hand that they were wrong to call us in the "permanent minority" for being so far down in Congress and, on the other hand, to suggest that they will soon be in a "permanent minority" for having a similar loss of seats.
The reason I feel confident in saying so is this: they pushed us into the deep minority in 2002 and 2004 using fear and lies. These kinds of tactics can't survive time, because time reveals truth.
We will push them into the minority by turning our core beliefs into good policy. Our core beliefs -- supporting and protecting the troops, widening access to health care, looking after the little guy instead of big business, keeping our environment clean -- are shared by a strong majority of Americans. Traditionally strong Republican issues -- such as fiscal responsiblity, competence in management, and national security -- we have taken from them and made ours as well.
We must avoid the temptations of corporate money and corruption.
We must avoid the temptation to let go of, or water down, our core beliefs.
Americans, once they see that the Democratic Party fights for them and not for its own power, will continue to vote the Democrats into the majority, permanently.