Building Caucus Discipline
by Chris Bowers, Tue Feb 15, 2005 at 11:38:59 AM EST
All this has severely suppressed dissent. During Bush's first term, about 90% of House and Senate Republicans sided with the majority of their party on key votes, according to Congressional Quarterly. That far exceeds the level of loyalty displayed by congressional Democrats in Clinton's first years -- or even Republicans during President Reagan's first term.
This is impressive stuff, the sort of thing that allowed Bush to be largely successful in passing his legislative agenda during his first term despite a closely divided Congress and nothing approaching a mandate. It might make some here cringe, but I admit to admiring it. Often, I feel many progressives confuse tactics and strategy with ideology, and think that if we campaign and order ourselves like the Republicans, we will become Republicans. This is a tragic mistake, since message discipline is important, since the truth will not always set you free and since you must be willing to scrape in the mud over character attacks if you want to win.Fortunately, many Democrats are increasingly coming to this realization:
Democrats, traditionally as easy to discipline as cats, aren't nearly so close to such a synchronized system. But increasingly that appears their goal.After Bush won reelection and helped the GOP gain Senate and House seats in the red states, many analysts thought moderate Democrats from those conservative areas would sue for a separate peace by breaking from the party to cooperate with him.
Bush did split Democrats last week on legislation restricting class-action lawsuits -- 18 Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the bill. But mostly, Democrats have unified behind a fervent resistance to Bush, which discourages internal dissent and aims more at mobilizing their core supporters than converting swing voters.
That direction is evident from the near-unanimous opposition among Democrats to Bush's Social Security and budget plans and the selection Saturday of Howard Dean, the left's great hope of the 2004 presidential campaign, as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.(...)
To discourage dissent, Democrats are also adapting Republican techniques. Though still not as tough as the GOP, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) is moving more forcefully than Gephardt, her predecessor, to threaten Democrats who back Bush with the loss of prized committee seats.
Privately, Democratic interest groups have discussed the creation of a liberal equivalent to the Club for Growth that would campaign against defecting Democrats. The online liberal behemoth MoveOn.org is already targeting ads at the one House Democrat -- Florida's Allen Boyd -- backing Bush on Social Security.
This is good to see. Republicans don't compromise anyone, so there is no longer any reason for us to compromise with them.
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