Tree Toad Helen Thomas: Dems Must Find Soul Of Their Party, Midterm Elections Show Flaw Of Transforming Into Neo-Republicans

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POSTED: 1:10 p.m. EST November 21, 2002 UPDATED: 3:31 p.m. EST November 21, 2002

WASHINGTON -- At last the Democrats may be forced to return to their traditional values and become once more the party that promotes a caring society.

The midterm elections must have showed them that transforming themselves into neo-Republicans was a losing proposition. They failed to distinguish their views as the loyal opposition from those of the hard-right White House and therefore they failed to rally the once faithful.

Clearly, the voters accepted the thunderbolts of fear and terror and war that President Bush threw at them in his relentless campaigning this fall.

Democrats should forget about trying to be centrists, which -- whatever that once meant -- now refers to waffling around and taking no strong stands. Sure, the middle ground served Bill Clinton well. He is a master politician who could argue anything both ways, and his pragmatism won him two terms as president despite the dark clouds of scandal that plagued him.

But now, in an anxious time when people are seeking security and certitude, the Democrats have not provided strong leadership against the staunch conservatives, who rarely bend on their ideology. They are, in fact, true believers.

If the Democrats had similarly remained true to their values, they would have focused more on helping the needy, offering clearer plans to fix the shaky economy, and blaming corporate corruption on the atmosphere created by the ultra-conservatives' uncaring policies of greed.

In other words, they would have proudly adopted the tenets of old-fashioned liberalism.

Certainly, not all Democrats agree. Al From, the founder and CEO of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, which claims Clinton as its most prominent member, argued recently that "to win in 2004, Democrats need to recapture the vital center ... moving left is counterproductive."

I think he's wrong because President Bush, as he showed in 2000, is resilient and can move to the center whenever he wants in campaigning.

In this year's struggle the Democrats did not attack Bush's vapid plans to boost the economy hard enough. They let him get away with his calls for more tax cuts, especially those favoring the rich, and for making the provisions of his 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax slash permanent.

The whole package would do little except boost the federal deficit, which apparently no longer concerns the GOP.

But the Democrats, particularly their leaders, failed to offer anything that was strikingly different. So the voters thought they had little choice. Of course, the Democrats had to take a strong stand against terrorism, a position everyone supports, and to back Bush in carrying the battle to Afghanistan.

But all along, the administration has focused more on snipping away at our civil liberties than it has on hunting for the terrorist al-Qaida chief, Osama bin Laden. This is an issue the Democrats should jump on. They should urge Americans to ask themselves if this administration has really made them feel safer with all of its color-coded alerts and big-brother security measures.

Democrats should also be tougher in questioning the need for a war with Iraq, which most other nations oppose.

No question, the Democratic Party has its work cut out for it, especially since the Republicans now control both houses of Congress as well as the White House.

Meantime, the party needs to find a standard bearer who can rally the troops. Right now there seems to be no frontrunner.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who won the most votes in the last presidential race but lost in the Supreme Court, has finally come out of his post-election doldrums and seems to be running again. He is giving high-profile TV and magazine interviews describing his personal ordeal over the last two years and is trying to project renewed vigor.

One shocker in the interviews last week was his declaration that the best way to solve the nation's most serious health problem -- that 40 million Americans lack insurance -- is to create a single-payer system where the government gets the bills. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Earlier, Gore was the first leading Democrat to challenge Bush on Iraq, arguing that the war on terrorism should come first. Both positions are strongly liberal and just might set a new marker for the party.

The election of avowed liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California as the new Democratic leader in the House should be seen as another marker.

Yet folks like Gore and Pelosi face an uphill battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, particularly since so many presidential wannabes are still centrists.

The Democrats have to decide who they are politically and what they stand for. If they stay in the middle as the conservative "New Democrats," they will again offer the voters no real choice, and again they will lose.

(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address helent@hearstdc.com)

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002


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