Last week, Howard Dean was interviewed on Morning Edition on NPR. Though he was pretty damn good, and vastly better than the jargon-spouting and inexplicably hostile Rahm Emmanuel (interviewed some days earlier), I think he blew the last question in a profound way. The question was (paraphrased): "George Will says that if the Dems don't win this time, when would they ever?" This is a pretty common CW idea in recent weeks. Dean said, basically, I don't respond to columnists, and anyway that's a silly thing to say. That was his whole answer. This actually could have been the opening for a great statement on what the Democratic Party is all about, and the rotting hollowness of the "Republican [De]volution" What I think he should have said, on the flip.
Here's my idea of a better answer (and BTW, in the same spirit of potential responses, if you haven't yet read Sunday's (10/29) Doonesbury, please do so -- it's a great blueprint for exactly the kinds of comments our candidates should be making daily):
"It's funny that this is the kind of thing people like George Will are saying, because the reality is, frankly, exactly the opposite. For 40 years prior to 1994, the people of this country almost exclusively chose the Democratic Party as the stewards of the most representative, most democratic branch of government we have - the law-making body, the Congress. The Republicans then took control of Congress in 1994, only about a dozen years ago. And about half of that time has been after 9/11. Remember that right after 9/11, there was a truly immense outpouring of goodwill and faith in the government - more than 90% of the country approved of the president at that time, for example. And yet here we are, only a handful of years since 9/11, and we see a Congress with approval ratings under 25% and we see an electorate that is actually seeing this election in national terms, that is, not only about local candidates, but about who will set the agenda in Congress. And we are having the conversation we are having today, about the Republicans very possibly losing Congress. Because people see that their trust was betrayed, and that the Republicans simply do not know how to govern. They see the disastrous policies, from Iraq, to Katrina, to the transformation of a giant surplus into a giant deficit, to the embrace of torture and the attack on our most basic constitutional rights. They see the corruption and the cover-ups, from Abramoff, to Duke Cunningham, to Tom Delay, and now to Mark Foley. They see the politics of division and pandering, from the cynical politicization of the Terri Schiavo case, to the shocking race-baiting we have see even in this election in Tennesee and Virginia. And they see the cronyism, the failure of this Republican Congress to investigate the abuses of this administration, the sweetheart no-bid deals with companies like Halliburton profiting from the Iraq war, and the troubling actions of a president who has ignored our laws and our constitution to assert king-like powers that threaten our very democracy.
"It is astonishing, really, at how quickly the Republicans have fallen, how quickly they have utterly squandered the enormous goodwill the nation gave them after 9/11, at how quickly the terrible consequences of Republicans running the country became clear. So what I would say, contrary to the view you quoted from George Will, which has been echoed by a number of other pundits as well, is that if the Republicans can't hold on to a Congressional majority now, after the nation wanted so badly to see them succeed, when will they ever be able to convince the nation to trust them again? We may take back one or both houses of Congress in November. But if we don't do it this year, I think it will happen in the next election. Because it is clear that the people of this country have seen that the Republicans are a party that just does not know how to govern. I would not be surprised, in fact, if another 40 years don't pass before people even think about trusting the Republicans with Congress again.
"The Democratic Party has served the people as stewards of their Congress in times of war and of peace, in times of hardship and prosperity, in times of great national crisis, and great national triumph. Through it all, I think we have shown we do know how to govern this great nation, and that is for one simple reason - because we are the party that seeks to represent, and to serve, the whole country, and not just our so-called base. Our policies are policies to lift up everyone, to open the doors of opportunity for everyone, to find common ground and work to the betterment of everyone. That is why Medicare and Social Security and voting rights and the GI Bill and clean water and air legislation all came from a Democratic Congress. We need that kind of leadership again, and I think the people of the country see that, and I think they are saying right now, yes, it's time to send back in the "A" team.
[shorter version: last two paragraphs...]