With the Capitol all but deserted last Monday night, the Democratic "30-Something Working Group" seized the House floor and took aim at their Republican adversaries.
As C-SPAN cameras beamed their performance around the country, Rep. Timothy J. Ryan, 32, of Ohio and Rep. Kendrick Meek, 39, of Florida recited a litany of GOP misdeeds -- mismanaging Hurricane Katrina and neglecting education and health care, for example -- and offered the Democrats' alternatives.
The two newcomers -- who have served a combined six years in the House -- are part of a new generation of Democrats who are working to try to topple the GOP. Their fresh ideas, modern media skills and aggressive political tactics have inspired a party that has drifted for much of the past decade -- wedded to old notions and seemingly incapable of capitalizing on White House and congressional Republican miscues.
As part of the new approach, House and Senate Democrats are devising an alternative agenda of key policies. Ryan is pushing proposals aimed at drastically reducing the number of abortions over the coming decade by offering support and services to pregnant women. Others are crafting a plan for reducing U.S. dependence on imported oil by using more domestic agricultural products, an approach that would have significant appeal to Midwestern voters.
"We can't be Dr. No to everything Republicans do," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). "We have to provide our own positive ideas."
The rise of the new breed, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Barack Obama (Ill.), the Senate's only African American and the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, marks a generational divide in a party long dominated by Northeastern liberals and Southern conservatives.
Unlike some of their forbears, the newcomers are pragmatists who view the past decade of GOP rule not as an aberration but as a sea change in political campaigning, fundraising and lobbying to which Democrats must adjust. They arrived in Washington as challengers and are comfortable questioning the establishment -- because they have not been part of it.
This is one thing the Democrats need to do. They need fresh blood to provide fresh new ideas on how to fix the problems of the country. The Democratic Party needs to come up with new ideas that reflect both government accountability in solving these issues with a free market approach of business stimulation. Great Society programs of the old Democratic Party will not work any more than the unfettered Big Business free market approach of the current Republican Party. The Democratic Party is starting to realize this. Consider the following:
While change within the party has not always gone smoothly, the top leaders recognize the importance of giving newer members running room. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has passed over more senior lawmakers to give newcomers key committee assignments and speaking roles during high-profile floor debates. For instance, she placed Meek on the Homeland Security and Armed Services panels, to enable him to earn national security credentials. And she gave Rep. Stephanie Herseth (S.D.) a prominent role in fighting a GOP plan to reduce Medicaid spending.
She also put junior lawmakers in charge of the 2006 campaign effort. "They are the future," Pelosi said. "And they are starting to set the pace for where things go."
In the Senate, newer faces must vie with Democratic presidential aspirants for media attention. Two who are breaking through are Obama, 44, and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), 42, one of 22 Senate Democrats who supported John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice of the United States. Yesterday, Pryor gave the Democratic response to Bush's radio address.
"One of the advantages of having a lot of new blood in the Senate is that we don't necessarily come to the chamber with a lot of baggage from past battles," Pryor said. "A lot of my senior colleagues vividly remember the Bork nomination. I don't care about Robert Bork. That's in the past, and I don't think we ought to dwell on that."
Pelosi says House and Senate leaders will soon lay out a slate of new ideas, similar to the "Contract With America" that the GOP used to attract voters in 1994, when it took back control of Congress.
One group that Democrats want to tap is veterans and active military members, who have seen their benefits cut or frozen as part of an ongoing budget squeeze. Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), a second-term House member, believes Republicans could pay heavily at the polls throughout the South for overlooking this crucial voting group.
"When I see white male Alabamians shaking their heads, that tells me there are opportunities for Democrats to make major inroads," Davis said.
The Republicans have concentrated their legislation towards benefiting their big-business / Wall Street benefactors, while extolling the virtues of trickle-down economics the middle and lower classes. And at the same time, they've put on a masterful PR show of defining social and religious issues as the primary reason to vote for candidates in elections. This is how they've controlled the electorate in many of the "red states." Indeed, Karl Rove's election strategy for keeping Bush in office was to concentrate on the Christian evangelicals with carefully crafted messages of gay marriages, removing God from American society, Pledge of Allegiance, and heightening fears of the destruction of the nuclear family. These were issues that resonated with the religious red state voters--never mind the fact that these voters were losing their jobs due to business outsourcing. The Republican message has always been about God, Guns and Gays--and will work up to a point until you start asking, "Are you better off than you were four...eight...ten years ago?" This is where the Democrats can make the inroads. But for the Democratic Party to succeed, they are going to have to take control of the message--get away from the Republican Party's desire to talk about God, Guns, and Gays, and start talking about the issues of class warfare, how the Republican Party benefits only the upper-rich elites and Wall Street at the expense of everyone else.
Start asking the question, "Are you better off than you were six years ago?" You might just start winning elections for the Democratic Party.
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