Contract on America, Anyone?

I stopped reading Barbara O'Brien's blog a while back (it's fair, she's never read mine) when she castigated today's protesters with a very shallow analysis of the '60s and '70s and advocated zen wisdom as a substitute. Since I still read Glenn Greenwald, however, I occasionally run into her guest posts. Not tempted to go back.

Check out today's, for instance, on how electing Dems is all important in 2006 so we can't have too many conditions on them but we're supposed to keep them accountable now and after so they'll support needed changes that they didn't really have to stand for when they were elected because we were voting for them no matter what anyway.

Huh? They're better than Repubs (what isn't?) but still not very good but they'll change if we support and institutionalize them in office. These guys who, last time they had any formal power in 2002, gave away the store on Iraq, tax cuts, Enron and energy task force oversight, judicial appointments who only don't look radical in present hindsight, etc.? In truth, voting for these guys is better than the alternative, but in much the same way that losing a hand is better than losing your liver. Especially when, with some effective strategy and foresight, you don't need to lose either.

I've discussed before how the current Dem dilemma is the result of way too many years in power, the erosion and loss of that power through institutional sclerosis, and the vain hope that things can somehow, someway, someday go back to the ways they were. No need really to change or to reconstitute meaning and purpose in light of the nation's needs and history. "If we win, everything will be okay." Didn't work with Carter or Clinton or Jeffords' defection in 2002, but this election, if they can just hold on as the only alternative as the Repubs lose it, this election will bring the promised land. With prophets named Casey and Webb joining other dependables like the Nelsons, Bayh, Biden, Feinstein, and Holy Joey B. (Yes, there are Lamonts and Testers and Browns--let's see if more than one of the three wins before we anoint them, okay?) Vote for the Dems? Hell, yes, but expect anything more than another pause before Jev Bushnev and colleagues storm in for more plunder? My breath is precious to me. (Wait, Mark Warner or Hillary will save us, I forgot.)

What's annoying in all this is that there actually is a model for holding the Dems accountable now and after the elections that no one really talks about, that gets around the Catch-22 that O'Brien (and Kos, whom she was defending) can't otherwise avoid. When the burgeoning Busheviks took the House in 1994, part (but not all) of their success was the focus they brought to their "Contract on America" (sorry, can't give it the real name). The substance of the Contract was pure PR but what was effective was that they required their candidates to give it support in return for party support, even if a candidate didn't agree with all of it. I'll never forget the Repub elected in my Oklahoma district that year stuttering to avoid publicly rejecting one of the Contract terms he didn't really agree with. The Contract allowed the Repubs to present a united front, a determined stand to do something about the evil that was Clinton and the arrogant (and they really were) Dems who had controlled the House too long. It was powerful, meaningless but powerful, and they haven't looked back since.

So, rather than these vague "we'll help you now if you'll be nice to us and, maybe, you know, when you can, maybe help us a little, but not too much to upset things very bad" attitude we're still seeing too much of, we could try the 1994 approach. Having half-Dems controlling one of the houses (and I'm not convinced that's close to happening) will only be effective for only marginally more purposes than currently (see Dems, 2002), and at the expense of having caved one more time to the faded and failed philosophy of "winning" without specifying winning "what." Say what the Dems stand for by saying what they stand for and make everyone who expects party support (we're looking at you, Holy Joe) stand by those things whether they like them or not.

I'm not talking about that vanilla and already forgotten list of policy whatevers Reid and Pelosi put out a while ago. Ground a few key themes, not policy directives, in the electorate's mind--Iraq timetables, energy independence, living wages, catastrophic health care ("catastropic" might not be the best word), affordable housing, education for real opportunities, protected retirements. Details? Don't be so damn wonkish. Just tell me as a voter that these are the important things and you know it and will fix them. They don't want to pay for it? They want to pay for Iraq and Paris Hilton, instead? Like I said, the Dems just have to say these things affect our future and it's time to deal with them because Dems stand for better lives for ALL Americans. Then hold every Dem to it. If they can't support themes like these, then what the hell?? Once you get elected, you know it's because of you, not because the Repubs have yet again overstretched their destruction of the Constitution.

But no. The progressive blogosphere isn't really all that different from the established Dems. "Winning" is the top priority for both sides, and it doesn't matter what opportunities are lost or whether foundations are built to make the victory lasting. The Dems in power, if they do win, will know that, once again, all they had to do was not be Repubs in a down cycle. And the American Legacy of freedom and opportunity for ALL Americans and of democratic, responsive government will deteriorate even more. And some bloggers far more read and honored than this blog ever will be will convince themselves that real good was done when the cancer was only slowed a bit at best.

It's amazing just how much un-reality dominates our "reality-based community."