And just to be pre-emptive: I am not a member of the DLC, I do not work for a member of the DLC (or one who acts like a member of the DLC) or of Democratic Leadership. I also don't work in the Senate, so I can't say anything of substance on Senate-only issues, like nominations.
I am writing this diary to explain, not to excuse. Clearly, I too want to see things change. Finally, this is meant to explain the dynamics facing the average Democrat; a few well-know members are just suck-up to the Republicans because of who they are.
Anyway, here goes:
We need to look at 4 different aspects of congressional action because each has its own dynamics to see how this comes together in a pattern: the appropriations process, domestic legislation, foreign policy, and leadership.
The Appropriations Process
Despite its relative obscurity, the appropriations process takes up the majority of congress' time and is where congress has the most impact on people's lives. The 11 annual appropriations bills account for all "discretionary" spending, meaning all spending that isn't based on open-ended formulas, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Last year, only one approps bill was opposed by the vast majority of Democrats: Labor, HHS, and Education.
The first reason for such wide-spread support for bills that reflected funding priorities way out of whack are the increasing use of district earmarks. Unlike the famous "bridge to nowhere," most earmarks go to good projects. Members love putting out press releasing saying, "Rep. X votes for $2 million for area health clinics," and so forth. For many members in swing districts, it's their reputation for bringing home the bacon that keeps getting them re-elected. Unfortunately, that same bill with the $2 million for health clinics also includes cuts in cancer research and increases in abstinence-only programs. But member who don't vote for bills will soon find the Republicans less and less willing to give earmarks for their district in upcoming years.
The second reason is that approps bills are huge bills covering many topics and all you can do is vote yes or no. (House rules severely limit the amendments that can be offered, and totally prohibit amendments to conference reports.) The defense appropriations bill, for example, contained an important pay raise for our troops, some (but not enough) money for body armor, and way too much for Iraq and Cold War-era weapons systems. Members can vote against the bill, but then they can expect an ad saying, "Rep. X opposes pay raises and body armor for our troops." You'll remember the ads about John Kerry voting against a number of important weapons systems. He didn't vote against any of the individual systems, but against the whole bill because he disagreed with the funding priorities or levels. But politicians know that once you have to start explaining appropriations rules to the average voter, the fight is lost.
Domestic Legislation
The first thing to remember is that Democrats usually do stand up on domestic legislation. The vast majority of Democrats opposed the bankruptcy bill and every Democrat voted repeatedly against the mandatory spending cuts. That's not a bad accomplishment, given that the Democratic tent does (and should) contain everyone from Berkley progressives to Tennessee deficit hawks.
The problem that does exist comes from the little bit of opportunity the Democrats to have to govern. Here, different people make different choices: some have decided to support things like impeachment, to speak bluntly, and so forth, while some have decided that they need to strike a different balance between politics and governing.
Part of this is what I call, perhaps inappropriately, "Battered Democrat Syndrome" - Democratic Members of Congress so dispirited by the continued losses that any opportunity to have a positive achievement is very exciting.
Part of it is that a lot of members came to Congress as policy wonks who want to make a difference or feel a responsibility to govern. As it happens, there are still plenty of issues that are bipartisan enough or fall under the political radar where lawmaking is still possible, like flood insurance reform or farm programs. Some of these issues are district/state specific and, therefore, an important way to show that the member is achieving things for their constituents. Often, members don't want to jeopardize these opportunities by burning bridges with Republican rank-and-file colleagues, many of whom are quite human and personally nice. Daily Kos members may disagree with this choice, but there is a logic behind it.
Finally, there's often the same dynamic on appropriations bills that members can only vote yes or no on large, multi-issue Republican written bills and are prohibited from offering amendments.
Foreign Policy
Similarly to domestic legislation, most foreign policy isn't the big political fights that we often hear about, or at least the divides aren't partisan. Support cutting military aid to Egypt? Support keeping Russia in the G-8? These are divisive issues, but the divides aren't Democratic vs. Republican. What about condemning Iranian nuclear ambitions? Certainly no one wants Iran to get a bomb, but should a Democrat vote against a resolution condemning Iran for violating their agreements because this paves the way to possible war? Different people will make different decisions.
The other problem is that foreign policy is usually dominated by interest groups (some good, some bad). Few members are expert in foreign policy, having come up from being mayors or state senators. So what happens is that, without vigorous debate, one solution to a given problem becomes the consensus view. For example, after a lot of pushing by one group, a bill supporting regime change (though not by military force) in Iran has attracted 338 cosponsors. Unfortunately, the Democratic grassroots too is split on a lot of these issues, or uninterested, and so member know that by bucking the dominant view they're not likely to get a lot of support from voters or donors.
On Iraq, the same issue of Republican-designed spending or Republican-written bills exists. What if a member wants to praise the troops, but not the President or wants to vote for armored humvees, but not an open-ended occupation? That option isn't available, and they know they'll get hit politically whichever way they vote.
Leadership
Last is the issue of how you get 203 different members, under different pressures, to agree on common positions and setting priorities. Usually, it comes through leadership.
Look at the Republicans over the last few years: supporting democracy abroad (however insincere), voting for a Medicare expansion (of dubious intent and design), and so forth. Before 2000, these were not Republican positions, yet under George W. Bush's leadership, they became key "achievements." Point being, leaders can influence party direction a great deal.
So, who is the leader of the Democrats? Most of you will probably answer one of the following: Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, John Kerry, or Bill Clinton. A recent poll shows that a plurality of voters think its Hillary Clinton. The point is that there isn't someone whom we can all take cues from on what we should support and what we should prioritize.
Take health care, for example. Almost all Democrats support some form of universal health care. Some support single payer, some "Medicare for all," some a credit to purchase private insurance. All of these would be improvements over the current situation, but until a party leader puts forth a plan that others can support, we have no way to decide which one all Democrats will support. When we do get a party leader, most Democrats will have no problem supporting whichever idea is in that person's platform.
What Needs to Change?
The first thing we need to do is get a public campaign finance system in place. This will dilute the dependence on interest groups and corporations and help give members more freedom to pursue public interest. This will help on foreign policy and on overly business-friendly legislation like the Bankruptcy Bill.
Second, we need to reform earmarks or eliminate them from appropriations bills. As long as members depend on Republican Leadership for hand-outs, they'll never be willing to fight the big funding fights.
Third, we need to let elected Democrats know that we'll be there for them with votes and money when they do the right thing, and then we need to follow through. Elected Democrats are still distrustful that the netroots are a serious source of support because of the wide-spread disdain for the elected Democrats in the blogosphere. It's a vicious circle, but it can be broken by a concerted netroots effort to support your local Congressman or Congresswoman when they do something right.
Fourth, we need to recognize that there are policy wonks and there are politicians and we need both. We need some Democrats to engage on these under-the-radar issues so that things can get done that will actually make peoples lives better. We also need members who want to yell about the big political issues and expose Republican wrong-doing. Members can't do both and as long as we preserve a balance, we should cut a break to those Democrats who would rather get something done than go down fighting on a suicide mission.
Finally, and most importantly, all of these problems go away as soon as we win. We'd be able to write the bills, we'd have a party leader/leaders who can set the agenda, and we wouldn't rely on Republicans to do actual governing. Of course, given the criticality of winning, that means that decisions should be made with an eye on '06 and '08. We should be more understanding of efforts to choose fights that are politically popular and be quieter on politically unpopular fights. We should be more understanding of efforts to put the best candidates in the best races and with the best chances. And, we should understand that Democrats may not say or do everything we want because it may not be helpful to the cause of winning.
I look forward to your thoughts and critiques.
