White House is all uphill for Dems

Editor’s note: A recent editorial mis-characterized commentary by University of California San Diego professor of political science Samuel L. Popkin and University of Arizona professor Henry Kim. Their commentary on Congress, the president and the 2008 election is published here.

The Democrats’ road to the White House in 2008 runs through Congress, and it is uphill all the way. Democrats who think that it is their turn to expand their pet programs have forgotten how quickly congressional heavy-handedness can revive the president’s party.

President Bush’s troubles are not unusual for a president whose party has just lost control of Congress. At this point in 1995, President Bill Clinton trailed Bob Dole in polls, and only 55 percent of Democrats even wanted him to run for a second term.

The parties that lost control of one or both houses in 1994, 1986, 1954 and 1946 all won the White House two years later. Presidential parties recover after midterm wipeouts because, as President Clinton had to remind people in 1995, “The Constitution makes me revelant,”

The president’s party begins to recover when he wields his veto pen – especially if he can establish his relevance as a defender of the center against the other party’s excesses. Democrats cannot overplay their hand the way Republicans did in 1995 after taking both houses and Democrats did in 1987 after taking the Senate. No clever slogans can help a candidate overcome legislative excess and partisan overkill by his own party.

To win the presidency, Democrats must use their control of the legislative agenda to keep Republicans divided and build a unifying record for 2008. This record must include national defense, renewing government and emphasizing insurance instead of welfare.

If Iraq is a detour, diversion or distraction, then what path should Democrats be following? Is “out of Iraq” a cover for freeing up money for domestic spending or an argument for finishing the job in Afghanistan? Democrats cannot argue that money saved by pulling out should fund domestic programs without restoring their reputation as indifferent to national security.

* Use hearings to restore confidence in government, not to attack Republicans.

Democrats can now use hearings to expose sweetheart deals in Iraq, hordes of incompetent appointees and the inept politicization of the Department of Justice. But such rebuffs of Republican excess will not demonstrate that Democrats can govern competently.

Too much emphasis on the negative makes Democrats look as though they care more about bringing down the GOP than making government serve ordinary people.

And investigations without solutions risk generating an indictment of government itself. According to the Democracy Corps Poll last month, Americans consider government waste and inefficiency a bigger problem than they do misplaced spending priorities or the wealthy not paying enough taxes. If Democrats want to create new programs for health or education, they must convince people that they are restoring the basic competence of government.

Nothing will hurt the GOP more than a Democratic Party that fixes government, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the broken military hospital system.

* Win veto battles with insurance programs.

President Bush and the GOP are now likely to be defined by which Democratic bills he signs and which he vetoes, instead of by the bills advanced from his right wing. The critical strategic decision is choosing which of the president’s programs to challenge, so that his vetoes make Republicans look extreme and Democrats sensible.

One lesson from past veto battles is clear: Democrats win showdowns with Republicans when they stand up for insurance programs such as Social Security against tax cuts. Democrats lose veto battles when they push for redistribution programs that do not resonate with middle-class attitudes regarding work, inequality and government competence.

In a battle between tax cuts and insurance, insurance wins. The 1995 GOP budget was defeated because Americans believed that it took away the floor by stripping money from Medicare and other universal programs that provide security. Clinton could champion the “services that people need,” while the Republicans appeared insensitive, interested only in how much they could cut taxes without raising the deficit.

* Build floors, not ceilings.

Americans (and people almost everywhere, according to polls) believe that a good society has floors below which no one should go, but they don’t support ceilings – limits on how much anyone can have.

Democrats should try to provide insurance for the uninsured without limiting choices for those who have insurance. Beefing up the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers insurance for working people and their children, would be smart. Bush has proposed limiting the budget for this program.

Expanding it – and daring the president to veto it – is the right way to confront Republicans.

So far the Democrats have – at least on domestic issues – been restrained, moderate and mostly harmonious. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been more Baltimore than Berkeley. The party has passed its “first 100 hours” agenda.

From here on, Democrats face the larger challenge of using their power on the Hill to help their 2008 presidential nominee. That means crafting initiatives that conspicuously address the concerns of middle- and working-class families and changing Bush vetoes into reasons to turn his party out of the White House.

Samuel L. Popkin is professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego. Henry A. Kim is assistant professor of political science at the University of Arizona.