Speak Not

by PETER BEINART
The New Republic, September 4, 2006, page 6


A few weeks ago, congressional Democrats announced their agenda for the fall campaign. Its substance was unremarkable: raising the minimum wage, making college tuition tax-deductible, putting more money into alternative energy. But the really encouraging part was the public reception. Or should I say, the lack of public reception: Barely anyone noticed. And, for Democrats, that's very good news.

If this fall's midterms become a referendum on the incumbent president and his party, they will be a bloodbath. With approval ratings south of 40 percent, George W. Bush may prove the least popular president to preside over a midterm election since Harry Truman in 1950. And the Republican Congress is even less popular--with less than one-third of Americans approving of its performance. Historically, when Congress's approval rating falls below 40 percent, the incumbent party loses an average of 29 seats in the House--double the number Democrats need to regain control.

So it's hardly surprising that Republicans want Democrats to offer a detailed agenda; it helps them change the subject. In 2004, when most Americans were unhappy with the nation's direction, the Bush campaign insisted that the election was not a referendum, it was a choice. And, while the Bushies couldn't convince most voters that the country was going in the "right direction," they convinced enough of them that John Kerry was effete, duplicitous, and weak that 51 percent stuck with the devil they knew. Now, as The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes has reported, the White House wants to make 2006 "a choice election, not a referendum election" as well. And the more Democrats say about what they would do in office, the better that strategy will work. As House Majority Whip Roy Blunt told Barnes, the Democrats' "best day will be the day before they release their agenda. Suddenly [Republican] policies will look like the policies that would work best in the future."

But, while it's easy to see why Republicans want Democrats to outline an agenda, why are so many Democrat-friendly pundits offering the same advice? The answer is the "Contract with America" myth. In 1994, according to legend, Americans were frustrated with Bill Clinton and the Democratic Congress, but they only decided to vote Republican in the campaign's closing weeks--after Newt Gingrich and company strode onto the Capitol steps on September 27 and announced their ten-point "Contract" with the nation. Six weeks later, the GOP had picked up an astonishing 54 seats and taken control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

For newly elected Speaker Gingrich, who wanted to claim a mandate for his right-wing agenda, the myth proved useful--and it has stuck. But it's nonsense. Few Republican candidates mentioned the Contract in their TV ads. As Democratic pollster Mark Mellman has noted, a CBS poll one week before the election found that 71 percent of voters had never heard of the Contract--and those who had were just as likely to support Democrats.

The real reason for the GOP's 1994 landslide was this: Republicans expressed their anger at Bill Clinton and the Democratic Congress by voting Republican, and Democrats expressed their anger by staying home. Republicans, according to a Gallup poll taken just before the election, were 15 points more likely than Democrats to declare themselves "enthusiastic" about voting. That enthusiasm was prompted by Clinton's gun control bill, his gays-in-the-military proposal, his failed health care initiative, and the tax hike in his 1993 budget. Democrats, by contrast, were distinctly unenthusiastic about nafta, which Clinton had pushed through over the labor movement's objections. On Election Day, the result was a sharply skewed electorate. Thirty-eight percent of voters declared themselves "conservative," compared with only 30 percent in 1992. Thirty-three percent identified with the religious right, up nine points from 1992. Turnout among blacks, Latinos, and the poor--key Democratic constituencies--fell, while turnout among the wealthy, who generally lean Republican, rose.

It was, in other words, the mirror image of this year. Today, according to the Pew Research Center, Democrats are 16 points more likely to declare their enthusiasm for voting. Only 42 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are happy with their party's performance, down 19 points from 2004. And a plurality of Republicans think most members of Congress don't deserve reelection. This year, in other words, disgust will likely propel Democrats to the polls and leave Republicans sitting at home.

For the White House, getting these surly GOP couch potatoes to vote is the only way to prevent political Armageddon. And the best way to do that is to get them so enraged about the Democrats that they forget their frustration with their own side. That's why congressional Republicans spent the summer dredging up wedge issues like gay marriage, abortion, and flag-burning. It's why Dick Cheney said Ned Lamont's Connecticut Senate primary victory might embolden Al Qaeda. And it's why Republicans keep trying to bait Democrats into unveiling a detailed agenda--in hopes of convincing Republican voters that, no matter how disappointing Bush has proved, the other guys would be worse.

But, so far, the Democrats have not played along: They have kept their proposals vague, and the press has paid little attention. And, with any luck, it will stay that way in the coming months. As much as possible, Democrats should stick to vacuous slogans like "time for a change" and "had enough?" Their big advantage is that midterm elections are hard to frame as a "choice," because, unlike in a presidential race, there is no single Democratic figure the GOP can demonize. In all likelihood, only one national politician will be on voters' minds when they go to the polls this November, and it won't be Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or Howard Dean.

Presidential elections are completely different. As John Kerry learned in 2004 (and Michael Dukakis learned in 1988), when you seek the White House, you either offer a vision that resonates with Americans or you lose--even against a weak incumbent. Two years from now, Democrats will need to articulate that vision. Today, however, they need to say something much simpler: "We're not George W. Bush." And then shut up.