Democrats Struggle To Seize Opportunity

[cal04]

Amid GOP Troubles, No Unified Message
News about GOP political corruption, inept hurricane response and chaos in Iraq has lifted Democrats' hopes of winning control of Congress this fall. But seizing the opportunity has not been easy, as they found when they tried to unveil an agenda of their own. Democratic leaders had set a goal of issuing their legislative manifesto by November 2005 to give voters a full year to digest their proposals. But some Democrats protested that the release date was too early, so they put it off until January. The new date slipped twice again, and now House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) says the document will be unveiled in "a matter of weeks."

(snip)
Perhaps the Democrats' greatest dilemma is how to respond to the Iraq war. It looms as the biggest
question mark over Bush's administration and the Republican lawmakers who have backed him on the conflict almost without question. Congressional Democrats have been split over the war since 2002, when many voted to authorize military action. The ground shifted last November when Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), a leading Democratic voice on military matters, called for U.S. troops to be withdrawn as soon as possible. Two weeks later, Pelosi endorsed his stance. Although Pelosi said she was not speaking for her caucus, some colleagues complained that she was handing Republicans a gift by enabling them to tag Democrats as soft on terrorism and forcing Democratic candidates to explain whether they agreed with their House leader.

There is little question that the political landscape looks promising for Democrats. A Feb. 9 poll by the Pew Research Center found that Democrats lead Republicans 50 to 41 percent in a generic ballot. But congressional Democrats have some key deficiencies. For instance, they lack the hard-charging, charismatic figurehead that Gingrich represented for the House GOP in 1994. But the Democrats have an abundance of presidential hopefuls, and their agendas sometimes differ from those of Reid, Schumer, Pelosi and Emanuel.

For instance, Sen. Russell Feingold (Wis.) tried to filibuster the renewal of the USA Patriot Act, a move opposed by most of his Senate colleagues, including Reid. Kerry (Mass.) led an unsuccessful filibuster attempt against Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s confirmation as a Supreme Court justice. The best-known Democrat is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), whose plans for a 2008 presidential bid leave many of her colleagues wary of how her famous but divisive presence might affect them. "There are lots of skeptics," Schumer conceded. But the polls look better and better, he stressed. "There may be some inside-the-Beltway babble, but it's not affecting the voters," said Schumer, who wants the agenda delayed again -- until summer.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/01/AR2006030102193.html

[neoblues]

1. We, the base, needs to do what we can...

to light some fires and pour on the pressure on our leaders to start taking chances--whatever they need to in order to take full advantage of the Republican weaknesses. The thread title has it right, Democrats are "struggling" to take advantage--and it's not clear they've got a strategy unified or not to effectively use the available ammunition. I hope they (or we) get it together soon--it's already March and time is marching on (yukyuk).

[Punkingal]

2. The fact that the Democrats are struggling....

When George Bush hands them something to use against Republicans almost daily lately says a lot about the ineffectiveness of our leadership. We need someone besides Reid and Pelosi. They are worse than inept. They are utterly useless.

[unblock]

4. oh please! let's have some BETTER leaders that they can keep off the air!

pelosi and reid, among others, actually say some great things. but the nation rarely hear it because wolf blitzer's ignorance and george will's pompous ass and rita crosby's hair all get vastly more airtime than democratic leaders.

pick a "better" democratic leader and they'll probably give them even LESS airtime.

[Punkingal]

5. I agee the media sucks....

However, Harry Reid got plenty of airtime when he shut down the Senate. Maybe that should give him a clue about what to do to get the message Democratic message out.

[unblock]

3. "no unified message"? of course not!

2006 is a congressional election, not a presidential election. there's rarely a "unified message" because there's no national campaign. the banana republicans' contract on america was an exception in 1994, but even that was merely snuck in during the last few weeks of the campaign, once the results were largely apparent.

a national theme would be nice, a good idea, but its absence is hardly noteworthy. it's normal. especially with the elections 8 months away.

[erpowers]

6. Media

Does anyone think this is just the media trying to depress the Democrats. It seems to me that no matter what Democrats do and what gains they make the media will try to claim that the Democrats are losing ground. Just about yesterday ABC was point out polls and claiming that Democrats were losing ground in that months earlier people responded to the question of who the wanted in charge of the country with a 50%+ for the Democrats to 40%+ for the Republicans, but now the polls shows only 40%+ for Democrats to 40%+ the Republicans. Democrats were still leading in the poll, but it was just a few percentage points. It just seems that if the media would point out the stances of the Democrats people would learn what the Democrats are talking about.

Second, was Gingrich that Charismatic. It seems that the Republicans who in 1994 partly due to the fact that the media never talked about Gingrich's and other Republicans' past. Also, I think the media at large did what it did when Schwarzenegger ran for governor of California. They just sat around as the Republican made bogus claims and did not tell the people the claims were bogus. The K Street scandal possibly could have been exposed years ago if the media had done its job.

[WCGreen]

7. Gingrich was the face of the GOP at that time...

Everyone else deffered to him........

[WCGreen]

8. Gingrich was the face of the GOP at that time...

Everyone else deffered to him........

[enough already]

9. IMPEACH

It's the only message that needs to go out. The whole world hates Bush. Everything else is just mental masturbation and inside-the-Beltway bullshit.