TIME: Turning the Tables (Dems getting their act together, Repubs divided)

[sabra]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1179973,00.html

Turning the Tables
For once, the Democrats are getting their act together while it's the Republicans who are divided

On Capitol Hill last week, it was almost as if the two parties had decided to switch roles. At a press briefing, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer was declaring, "Republicans don't have an agenda," a critique Republicans usually hurl at Democrats. The next day Hoyer and other Democrats from the Senate and House, along with state governors, got together to announce the party's unified plan for improving America's national security.

Meanwhile, Republicans were looking in disarray — even before the announcement this week that Tom DeLay would give up his House seat. Some House Republicans were quietly criticizing Majority Leader John Boehner for not supporting a 700-mile fence for the U.S.- Mexico border that was part of an immigration bill passed by the House in December, while Senate Republicans questioned if their leader, Bill Frist, was allowing his presidential ambitions to get in the way of passing immigration legislation. And as the Senate moved forward with a lenient immigration reform plan, a group of almost two dozen House Republicans held a press conference to strongly denounce the Senate GOP's approach.

The conventional wisdom in Washington in recent years has been that Republicans are more unified and disciplined and have better-articulated ideas than Democrats, who are often at war with one another and questioning their leadership. But lately the Democrats, looking to create a campaign platform for 2006, have put out some ideas that their famously fractured party largely agrees on. Earlier this year, they released a plan to reform lobbying following the scandals of Jack Abramoff. Last week's security ideas were hardly earth-shattering: increasing inspection of goods coming through U.S. ports, doubling the number of Special Forces troops, pushing Iraq toward full sovereignty by the end of this year, and increasing efforts to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. Some Democrats, like Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha, have called for more aggressive steps, like the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But Democrats seem to broadly agree on the security issues that hurt them in 2002 and 2004.

And Democrats can't be accused of lacking ideas: many of the party's most prominent leaders are putting out long tomes detailing their views. Later this month, Ted Kennedy's book America Back on Track will lay out ideas to ensure universal health care for all Americans, and House Democrat Rahm Emanuel and former Clinton aide Bruce Reed will put out a modestly titled book called The Plan in August that includes ideas such as a national science and technology center modeled on the National Institutes of Health. Illinois Senator Barack Obama has told the Chicago Tribune his new book The Audacity of Hope, due out in October, will look to show how politicians can "shift away from ideological debates and focus on traditional American common sense."