Andrew Olmsted dot com: Democrats and National Security

February 22, 2005

Democrats and National Security

Matt Yglesias, like many smart Democrats, is working hard to develop a solid platform for the Democratic Party in 2006 and 2008 after the party's troubles of the past four years. Today he's looking at the Democrats and national security, a bugbear that has haunted his party since the halcyon days of George McGovern. As Matt correctly observes, President Clinton did not overcome the Democrats' weakness on national security, he just managed to be fortunate enough to run at a time when the electorate didn't think national security was very important. Remember James Carville's infamous slogan, 'It's the economy, stupid'? In 1992 it was, because the electorate forgot that the world isn't nearly as nice and fuzzy as we'd like it to be. After 9/11, that argument is harder to make although the lesson may have faded enough in 2008 for an unserious Democrat to win anyhow.

The party would be foolish to count on that, however. As the risk of terrorist attack on the United States is likely to continue for at least a generation, if the Democrats can't put themselves forward as being serious about national security, they may wander in the wilderness for quite some time to come. While I might enjoy a touch of schadenfreude over such a prospect (the tendency of Democrats to equate politics with morality tends to rub me the wrong way), it wouldn't be good for the country (hey, a new slogan for the Democrats: what's good for Democrats is good for the country!). The Democrats will regain the levers of power sooner or later, assuming Howard Dean doesn't lead them into obscurity. It's in all of our interests for the Democrats to regain their credibility on national security.

Doing this isn't quite so easy, of course, but I think the Democrats are better positioned than they may first appear. The biggest problem Democrats tend to face when it comes to national security is that it bores them. Democrats tend to forget that the most important social service that a government can do for its people is to keep them alive and free. This isn't overly surprising; most people don't really worry about that because the odds of a foreign power successfully bringing down the United States hovers right around zero. It's a lot more fun to think about the other cool things that government can do, and that's what Democrats tend to do. (Sandy Berger tends to be exhibit A in this respect: he's an A-list Democrat on national security, and he treats it so unseriously he walks out of vaults with classified documents that he subsequently loses[Clarification: it appears Mr. Berger did not take anything irreplacable from the archives, although a copy of a classified document remains classified, so his negligence remains a symbol of carelessness with national security.]. Or look at crossover Cabinet positions: President Bush keeps Democrat Norm Mineta on as SecTrans as a token gesture of bipartisanship. President Clinton made Republican Bill Cohen his SecDef.) Since few Democrats get really excited about national security issues, they tend to talk about what does excite them and people pick up on that. Changing that attitude about national security would be a significant step for the party, because they actually could offer some points that would appeal to the electorate.

The Republicans have already done the heavy lifting for the war in Iraq, for example. The Democrats could shift their focus from defeatism to rapid victory in Iraq even if they think we were wrong to invade. Since we can't uninvade, why not attack President Bush from the right not just from a partisan standpoint, but with real suggestions for solving the problems we've run into in Iraq due to errors made during the invasion and occupation? Sure, if the suggestions are heeded and work President Bush will get some of the credit, but he has no heir apparent anyhow and there will be no 'third term' for President Bush offered in 2008 as his father and Al Gore offered third terms for their popular predecessors. Offering real solutions to some of the problems we face in Iraq is win-win for the Democrats: it demonstrates their willingness to articulate a national security strategy for victory and, if their ideas pay off, it reduces the voters' concerns over national security.

Similarly, the Democrats ought to take a hard look at addressing the other aspects of the war. The Republicans are looking so hard at Iraq they often seem to forget that this war is going to be fought on numerous fronts. A more muscular internationalism might help the U.S. to keep pressure on Islamofascism on multiple fronts. If the Democrats could get away from disparaging the international partners we do have and instead come up with proposals to expand the coalition, they could present themselves as the better party to win the war. I'll readily concede that I'm not sure how to expand the coalition, but I'll wager that a concerted effort by some of the brightest minds in the Democratic Party could come up with some feasible proposals that go beyond John Kerry's fatuous claims that foreign leaders would listen to him after ignoring President Bush. They just need to pull out some realpolitik in lieu of wishful thinking, something I think they're fully capable of.

The voices of the far left are much louder in the Democratic Party than they used to be. But despite MoveOn's boasts, I don't think the Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the far left just yet. Party leaders like Joe Lieberman and Joe Biden (new Democratic strategy: recruit more Senators named Joe) and smart Democrats like Matt and Kevin Drum are more than capable of putting forth a Democratic Party that offers economic paternalism alongside a strong national defense a la FDR and Harry Truman. And I suspect if they pull it off, we'd see a marked Democratic resurgence. That idea doesn't thrill mean, given my own economic leanings, but it doesn't take a Carville to see that the electorate tends to lean in those directions. The question is, can the strong defense Democrats successfully point their party towards that victory? OK, there's also the question of whether or not I'm right in my assessment of the electorate, but that's putting the cart before the horse.

Posted at February 22, 2005 06:46 AM

Andrew Olmsted

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Comments

I think another terrorist attack would help more than hurt the Democrats and as a Democrat, I hope we don't have one. Bush would get a bump initially from an attack, but he can't run again. Republicans ran on being the ones to protect us, with them in control of everything it would be hard to push blame eleswhere. Unless of course the weak ass Democrats let them again.

I think Democrats should stop focusing only on opposition to the war. We can remind people that we think it was wrong while presenting ideas to successfully end it. We can also put forth a better grasp of thh War on Terror than the Republicans are currently doing. Circumstance has made Iraq their focus and they will live or die with it. Bush says the war has many fronts yet only focuses on one.

I would also like to point it a difference between the concepts of being strong or weak on defense. I would consider myself a defense minded person who was opposed to going into Iraq because it didn't really help the War on Terror and took the focus off bigger threats. Most of my friends are the same. Like Einstein said, "I am not only a pacifist, but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace."

Posted by: Scott at February 22, 2005 01:49 PM

Just thought I'd point out that you're characterization of Berger is completely bogus (see the WSJ, excerpted here). Your other points are also quite interesting. You assume that Iraq was actually useful in the WOT, and there's no evidence of this. In fact, according to the latest reports from Dr. Goss, we seem to be in an even worse position than when we started.

Now, granted, the all important perception of whether Iraq had anything to do with the WOT and whether it actually helped or hurt is quite different than the actual facts. And I would completely agree that Republicans are certainly winning that battle.

But a house built on sand is not something to be proud of.

Posted by: hellblazer at February 22, 2005 03:50 PM

Scott,

I think your take on defense could be quite successful for the Democrats. Take a cue from the Marines: no better friend, no worse enemy. As long as other countries/international entities aren't threatening us, we leave them alone. But when we're threatened, we hit hard and we make sure that we take as little damage as possible and our enemies take it in the shorts.

Hellblazer,

Thanks for the correction; I have noted it in the original post. As for your other points, I'm afraid you're incorrect. I am not taking any position on whether or not Iraq was the right idea. I'm saying that since we're there now, and since it is clearly the primary front in the WOT now, we ought to be trying to win there rather than trying to flee. At least, if the Democrats want to be taken seriously on national security. Advocating an abandonment of Iraq will only confirm the stereotype of Democrats as being unwilling to fight, like it or not.

I have no interest in refighting the question of whether or not we should have gone into Iraq. The subject at hand is how to improve the Democrats' standing on national security, and stepping forward and saying that now that we're in a war we need to win it is a better way of doing that than forever fighting a battle that is now overcome by events.

Posted by: Andrew at February 22, 2005 06:41 PM

Hellblazer,

Perhaps we both should have read that excerpt more closely. Berger still took classified documents home, he just didn't take every copy. While it's nice to know nothing was permanently lost, that kind of carelessness with classified documents is not a hallmark of someone taking national security seriously.

Posted by: Andrew at February 22, 2005 06:46 PM

Regarding your essential point, of course democrats need to change their image. Regarding Berger, I'm not sure this is a marker of seriousness wrt national security. Surely you're not saying that. . .

wrt abandoning Iraq, there are at least as many of those on the right that advocate quick withdraw from Iraq. Heck, the original plan was to be out in less than a year. Perle still thinks we should just hand the thing over to Chalabi and get on with the next country and believes the reason everything went to hell was because we didn't do this.

My point is that "abandoning Iraq" is hardly an issue that the democrats "own" and during the election I believe you'd be hard pressed to find any democrat who was advocating it.

I'm not really sure how one would measure "winning" in Iraq. We've certainly already "won" the war against Saddam's army. Now we're occupiers hosting a civil war which is breeding terrorists. I think the best we can hope for is simply "not screwing the pooch completely".

I know that's setting the bar pretty low, but I do believe our negatives on this little escapade are immense and continue to grow.

Posted by: hellblazer at February 23, 2005 08:00 PM

I suspect that if any new Democratic position feels more like a "communication strategy" than a core belief, they won't be trusted. And as long as it appears that the loony left is a growing factor in the party, they won't be trusted. And as long as people get the sense that the Democrats consider France and Germany as some kind of moral models for us, they won't be trusted. I think the issue extends far deeper than an image or communication problem. People like Mr. Biden, Mr. Lieberman and even Mrs. Clinton may be able to make headway against this issue, but there's a lot of folks in the party that readily undo their efforts. As someone who has shifted from one side of the center to the other over the last twenty years, I see little yet to start me back the other way again, and this issue is the primary problem.

Posted by: Gman at February 26, 2005 12:15 AM