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« Back to Will the Democrats Come Back? main page    Transcript for: Will the Democrats Come Back?Think Tank Transcripts:Can the Democrats Come Back? MR. WATTENBERG: Hello. I'm Ben Wattenberg. The effects of theelection earthquake of November 8th are still rumbling across thepolitical landscape. Today we begin a two-part look at the future ofAmerica's political parties. First, the Democratic Party: can theso-called party of government flourish when it no longer pulls thelevers of congressional power? Joining us to sort through the conflict and consensus are RobertBorosage, senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies; WillMarshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute; historianMichael Beschloss, a fellow at the Annenberg Foundation and author of'The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev'; and Jeane Kirkpatrick,senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, professor ofpolitical science at Georgetown University, charter member of the nowdefunct Coalition for a Democratic Majority, and former ambassador tothe United Nations in the Reagan administration. The question before this house: Can the Democrats come back? Thisweek on 'Think Tank.' America's oldest surviving political party has weathered roughseas before. In 1894, the Democrats were swept out of Congress,prompting one wag to remark,'There is no Democratic Party, andWilliam Jennings Bryan is its leader.' But the Democratic Party has also faced big challenges morerecently, many of them self-inflicted. PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: (From videotape) I shall not seek and Iwill not accept the nomination of my party for another term as yourpresident. MR. WATTENBERG: In the 1960s, a triumphant Democratic Partyenacted a program of sweeping reforms called the Great Society, butby 1968, the party was torn apart by the Vietnam war abroad andsocial upheaval at home. Some observers say the conflicts of the1960s never healed. Ideological battles continued within the partythroughout the 1970s and the 1980s. SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY (D-MA): (From videotape) No more Americanhostages. (Applause.) No more high interest rates, no more highinflation and no more Jimmy Carter. (Applause.) MR. WATTENBERG: Republicans capitalized on Democratic disarraywith what looked like a permanent lock on the White House. Meanwhile,the Democrats held on to the Congress, steadily in the House ofRepresentatives and for all but six years in the Senate. In 1992, it seemed that Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas couldreunify the Democratic Party and take it in a new direction. PRESIDENT CLINTON: (From videotape) I am against brain-deadpolitics in both parties, and you should be too. MR. WATTENBERG: But on November 8, 1994, a Republican tide sweptaway Democratic majorities in the Senate, the House ofRepresentatives and state governorships. Not a single Republicanincumbent lost. Many Democrats blame Bill Clinton for the big Democratic defeat.Others say it was raw voter anger. And some maintain the Republicanswon because Americans are becoming more conservative while theDemocratic Party is becoming more liberal. One thing is for sure. TheDemocratic Party and its leader are in trouble. Will Marshall, the Democratic Party is indeed in trouble. How dothey come back? MR. MARSHALL: Well, Ben, I think the first thing is to understandthat this election closed the book on an era in Democratic politics.The New Deal coalition is finished, the agenda the Democrats havebeen defending for decades really is now under threat. TheRepublicans have taken over the machinery of Congress. And it's timefor Democrats to fashion a new agenda that is competitive with NewtGingrich and company for claiming the vital center in Americanpolitics. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Bob Borosage. MR. BOROSAGE: Well, I think it's clear the public's looking forchange. There are real problems that people have, and they're lookingfor solutions. And they voted for change this year. Unless Democratsbecome a party that is for substantial change for working people,that helps them in their real life, they will have a hard time comingback. MR. WATTENBERG: Michael Beschloss. MR. BESCHLOSS: I think if history is any guide, the best thing theDemocrats can hope for is that the public will come around to theirposition on activist government. The Democrats for a half centurywere in favor of a government that was more active. The majority ofAmerican people were, too. The issue hasn't really changed. That's still the issue thatseparates Democrats from Republicans. The best thing that Democratscan do is wait for a time when Americans are a lot more sympatheticto activist government than they are in 1994. MR. WATTENBERG: Jeane. MS. KIRKPATRICK: Well, I think it's all about the relationshipbetween government and society and that this has been the issue for along time. And there was a period when people were convinced thatthey could improve their lives by using government as an instrumentto transform society. And the government kept working and working onthat agenda, and finally people decided, no, we've gone too far thatway and what we really want is a government that will reflect societyand respond to it, not a government that will use power to try toforce change. And I don't think that in our lifetimes, frankly, there will be aswing back to support for a really activist government to transformsociety. I think, by the way, this is happening all over the West --in France and in Britain and in Germany, as well as in the UnitedStates. MR. WATTENBERG: Michael, what historically happens to the losingparty in this kind of a, we think, perhaps, transforming election? MR. BESCHLOSS: Well, in a way it's unprecedented because usuallyif there is a great party realignment, such as 1860, the reason thathappens is because an issue like slavery comes out of the blue sky,becomes central in American politics, and causes the parties and theparty system to break up in a way that had never happened before. The interesting thing about the change this year, there is no newissue. It's still really activist government against a much morelimited idea of what government does. And the difference is simplythat the Democrats are no longer in the majority on that point ofview. And the result is that if the Democrats decide to take a moremoderate view of the way they have approached big government, let'ssay during the period of the Great Society or the New Deal, theresult is that they are destined to be the party that the Republicanswere for perhaps the 40 or 50 years after the New Deal, which isthey'll be voted in once in a while, but their function will be torevise and edit what the Republicans do, not to be a majority partyin this country. MR. WATTENBERG: So you are agreeing with Jeane that in ourlifetime at least, we are not likely to see a Democratic government? MR. BESCHLOSS: Unless there is a great wave of support for thekind of interpretation of government that there was during the NewDeal and the Great Society. In 1994, that looks rather far away. MR. WATTENBERG: Is there anything the Democrats specifically canor should do now and in the future -- say, the next two years andbeyond -- to get back to this -- MS. KIRKPATRICK: Ben, I think that the only thing the Democratscan do if they want to become a party of government, frankly, at anylevel is to listen more closely and respond more, you know, clearlyto the views and values of the American people. That's what we'vealways said, you know, for a long time. MR. WATTENBERG: And hibernate for a little while. MS. KIRKPATRICK:And hibernate. Listen carefully, think it over, yeah. MR. MARSHALL: I think the idea of getting back is the wrong one.There is nowhere to go back. And I must disagree with Michael thatthis is -- you know, we're simply going to be replaying a debatebetween big, activist government and some conservative alternativeand we'll temporarily be on the down side of that debate. I think something fundamental has happened. The galvanizing issueof our time is an economic transformation that is absolutelysweeping, as important in its impact on our society as the move froman agrarian to an industrial society was in the progressive era. Thatis why Bob is right. Lots of working middle-class folks, despiterobust economic growth right now, are feeling insecure. They don'tknow how to cope with this new economy, the age of the microchip.It's presenting them with bewildering changes, and their wholesources of security are dissolving. And what they are looking for, I think, is not either side of theold left-right debate over big government or less government. Theywant an enabling government. They don't want welfare stateprovisions, in my view, but they want government activism that helpsthem cope with these bewildering changes. MR. WATTENBERG: You were saying before, Michael, that there hasn'tbeen a transforming election without a major event. You know, Ilooked at the polls just before the election, and you saw very, veryclearly -- depending how the question was asked, but that this valuesissue had become the paramount issue in American life. You all havenot brought it up yet. Is it plausible to you that the Democrats looking forward have toget straight on values and that this is really what brung Clintondown? MR. BESCHLOSS: I think it's going to help a lot, although I wouldprobably differentiate that from something like slavery or some ofthe other issues that just were like a cleaver through the Americanpolitical system. This is something more of a rolling change. But Ithink it has been the problem with Bill Clinton, who in 1992 at leastfeigned, pretended to be a DLC moderate, but who, I think if you wereto look at him, is someone who would have much preferred to berunning in 1964. MR. MARSHALL: The reason that the reaction against Clinton and theDemocrats was so sharp and so unequivocal in the last election wasprecisely because many people think he did not live up to the promisehe made to be a new Democrat. MR. WATTENBERG: What Michael was saying. MR. MARSHALL: When you asked people, what do you identify Clintonwith, they said with big government, and the most frequently citedreason was the health care plan, which indeed scared the middle classin this country. The second most frequently cited item was that he was a culturalliberal, and everybody cited gays in the military. So the publicdoesn't think he is anything very different from the old Democraticpolitics that they've been rejecting lately. MS. KIRKPATRICK: Which brings us back to the values issue. Ithink, Ben, that it's very significant that Bill Clinton and Hillarycame into American politics with the McGovern campaign, which wethought then, you and I -- because you were also a charter founder ofthe Coalition for a Democratic Majority -- MR. WATTENBERG: I was indeed, of the now defunct Coalition for aDemocratic Majority, right. MS. KIRKPATRICK: -- we thought then was a -- simultaneously amatter of economic and political and cultural issues, and was acreation of a cultural revolution as well as some different views onthe Vietnam war than Johnson's or Humphrey's or Scoop's or somebody-- Jackson. And I think, in this sense, that Bill Clinton is a kindof end of that cycle, that he came in with the McGovern campaign andthat he goes out, as it were, with the cultural issues. MR. WATTENBERG: How much of the Clinton thing is just'personalistic'? You know, you hear people saying, God, every time Icome into my living room, there he is on my television set; get thisguy out of my house. I guess'The New York Times' ran an editorial that alluded to Dr.Fell, I guess a 19th-century British poet named Brown who said,'I donot like thee, Dr. Fell. The reason why I cannot tell, but this Iknow full well, full well. I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.' Is there something about Clinton personally that's just gettingpeople angry? MR. BESCHLOSS: I think it's ideas, and the problem is that whenyou've got a party that is trying to be something other than what itwas, like the Democratic Party, you have the situation in 1992, wherepeople were wondering, is Bill Clinton someone who has recognizedthat the country has changed, that you have to have a differentattitude toward government than you might have in 1964, or is thissomeone masquerading as a moderate in order to get elected? And the result was that when you began with gays in the militaryand you unveiled this very big government health care plan, it leadspeople to say, aha, this is a liberal who is basically a guest in hisown time. Until you've got a situation in which you have Democraticnominees -- and he was embraced by a Democratic Party that presumablywould have liked to be more moderate, unless you have people who havethe genuine instincts that really harmonize with this change inAmerican politics, you'll see probably this kind of revulsion againsta Democratic president if one is elected. MR. WATTENBERG: Bob Borosage, let me ask you two questions as aman of the left or from the left. Is the Democratic Party, the rightwing of the left-wing party, the center right, which is where thatold Coalition for a Democratic Majority was, where I think Will'sDemocratic Leadership Council was. Are they -- they've been callednot a wing of the party, but a feather of the party -- are theyreally out of it? And secondly is, if the party -- if PresidentClinton decides to hang a right turn to get to that centerconstituency, would you as a man of the left back a third party runby, say, Jesse Jackson? MR. BOROSAGE: I think it's very much premature to talk third partyat this point, but -- MR. WATTENBERG: Well, he's apparently hanging a right turn. MR. BOROSAGE: I think you see the Democratic Party is clearly --the Democratic Party's future is as a party of middle class andworking people, a multiracial party. You can't avoid that. You can'tdo push-off politics and pretend that's not true. And to the extentyou try to go away from that and to pretend you're something else orto become Republicans, you do what the Coalition for a DemocraticMajority does. Eventually you end up as Republicans. And so the Democratic Party has to be what it is. When it goesback to that base -- I think people here are misreading thiselectorate very much. This is an electorate, as Will says -- Will andI agree on this -- this is an electorate that is looking forsignificant change, that thinks this capital city is corrupt andtaken over by very large, very powerful interests that don'trepresent them, and they are casting about -- MR. WATTENBERG: But you two are not saying they're the sameinterests? MR. BOROSAGE: I think actually we are in many ways. They'recasting about looking for dramatic change. I think this notion thatthey're for a passive government is wrong, and I think to the extentthe Republicans give them a passive government, they won't be veryhappy with it. They're looking for real solutions to real problems. MR. MARSHALL: Ben, I'll just raise one point. We have a verystatic view of the Democratic Party here. I mean in the 19th century,the Democratic Party was not associated with the vigorous use offederal power. MR. WATTENBERG: Absolutely. MR. MARSHALL: In fact, it opposed that as being contrary todemocracy. MR. BOROSAGE: It was a very rural party. MR. MARSHALL: I understand that. In the 20th century,centralization was a modernizing and progressive force, and that'swhy had I been alive in the progressive era in the 30s, I would havebeen a strong advocate for that policy and why the Democrats wereright to embrace those policies. But we're in a new era. The party can't go back or keep fightingthese old battles. And one of the -- the good news from this electionis that Bill Clinton and the new Democrats are liberated from thisold status quo that was defended by powerful congressional committeesworking incestuously with interest groups, with the experts whodefined problems and defined the solutions without consulting thepeople. This nexus of relationships has been shattered. The Republicansare taking over the machinery, even changing the committees so theyno longer can protect the old vested interests. They may protect newones, but at least they won't be protecting the old ones. MR. WATTENBERG: Michael. MR. BESCHLOSS: One problem with that is that a large part of theDemocratic base, and especially the Democratic base after theelection of 1994, is not going to be particularly turned on by thoseissues. They're going to feel rather alienated, they're going to feelthe Democratic Party is beginning to slough them off. They're notgoing to turn out very much. MR. BOROSAGE: What are you thinking of? MR. BESCHLOSS: Well, what I'm thinking of is, if you want to seean energized system, what you want to see is two parties that reallystand for a very great deal of difference. That's when you have a lotof turnout. Sometimes, as in a parliamentary system, it means thatone party is destined to be the minority party for a while, but italways comes back. What I would much prefer to see is a Democratic Party that triesto address the people who are at the center of that base and perhapsdoes not try to walk away from the idea of activist government, andwaits for the time when people feel that there are a lot of problemsthat are not being addressed by the private sector and perhaps not bystates and localities, and that way will come back once again. MR. WATTENBERG: Will, has the window closed on Clinton? We allagree that he had this great window, and it's led people like me toendorse him publicly and write columns about it. And now these events-- some of it is unfair. I mean I think he actually did accomplishsome good things. I happen to like the crime bill, I think he's inthe right direction on the education bill. But the fact is that hehas become somewhat poisonous in the Democratic Party. Has that window of opportunity for him shut? Is he going to bechallenged on the right -- I talked to you about a challenge on theleft -- by say, a Senator Bob Kerrey? David Boren, former senatorfrom Oklahoma who resigned, is making noises that sound like anindependent candidacy. My colleague Norman Ornstein says it might bebacked by Ross Perot. Has Clinton's time gone? MR. MARSHALL: No, it hasn't. The door hasn't shut on him.Amazingly enough, I think there is a way out for Bill Clinton and theDemocratic Party. We've been probing the independent vote prettyintently lately. MR. WATTENBERG: You just took a big poll, didn't you? MR. MARSHALL: A big poll. This is the new factor. We're talkingabout Democrats, Republicans, left and right. You know, people aredisenfranchised by the old left-right choices. Thirty percent of theelectorate is resolutely independent; they don't like either party.They swung against George Bush and passive governance in 1992. Theyjust swung against Bill Clinton and the Democrats in 1994, but theyare not intrinsically Republicans or even conservatives. And if NewtGingrich and company don't shake up this corrupt insider status quothat they dislike so much, I would guess that in 1996, they're goingto be in trouble, because the independent voters aren't giving muchtime to deliver what they want. So there is an opportunity for Bill Clinton to contest NewtGingrich and company for the mantle of radical progressive reform. MR. WATTENBERG: Bob Borosage, what would your for-instances be asto what Clinton ought to do to recapture -- MR. BOROSAGE: Well, I read Will's poll. I think the poll is right,it's just the conclusions he draws that are goofy. The poll is,people are disgusted with politics-as-usual. You've got to putforward a program of political reform that tries to limit money inpolitics -- MR. WATTENBERG: Well, what are your for-instances? MR. BOROSAGE: Campaign finance reform, changing the lobby system-- and push it and make it a presidential priority, not something youtry to slip over at the end of the day. Take that mantle back. Youallowed Newt Gingrich to look like he represented political change inthe country with term limits. That we ought to contest. You've got togo back and put forward a set of things that help people witheveryday problems that they face. Now, welfare reform is I think replaying the crime debate. Youknow, all these careful pollsters said, well, people are really forboth punishment and prevention. And of course that was true, but whenit became punishment and pork, they turned on the president and theDLC members sabotaged him because they didn't want to limit assaultguns. You do welfare reform -- when people discover that Bill Clintonthinks ending welfare as we know it costs more than keeping welfareas we have it, he's going to get killed by the Gingrich plan, whichpretends it's going to save half of the welfare budget. You know,people are going to see him more -- MR. WATTENBERG: So are you advising him to do something that willget him killed? MR. BOROSAGE: No, I'm not. I think welfare reform is a bad subjectfor the president. I think you try to limit the damage thatRepublicans do. MR. WATTENBERG: Well, he ran on it. I mean in 1992, you couldn'tstop the man from saying -- MR. BOROSAGE: It was a bad subject then, too. MR. WATTENBERG: -- end welfare as we know it. You want to keep thewelfare system as it is now? MR. BOROSAGE: I want to limit the damage the Republicans are goingto do to poor children. I want to put forward a program that dealswith the real problem that working people have as they try to gothrough jobs that don't have health care, that don't have security,that don't have paid vacations, that don't have child care, etcetera. I mean this is a society in which middle class people havereal problems now. The president's got to talk to that or Democratssimply aren't going to be able to have pudding in this. If the answeris, in this economy we can't do anything to help you, then I thinkRepublicans will win these elections, because they don't want to doanything. MR. WATTENBERG: What would you all -- let's just play a littlehypothetical here -- what would you advise the Republicans to do inthis moment of disarray with the Democrats? And I will start withyou, Jeane Kirkpatrick. You are one of the few Americans extant whoworked for both Hubert Humphrey and Ronald Reagan. MS. KIRKPATRICK: That's right. MR. WATTENBERG: That's right, so -- MS. KIRKPATRICK: With some enthusiasm in both cases. MR. WATTENBERG: In both cases. I understand that. What should theRepublicans do? MS. KIRKPATRICK: I think that the Republicans should do what theyin fact are doing, first of all, which is reaffirming the elements ofthe Reagan program, the Reagan orientation. The fact is that theRepublican Party is not a party of the status quo at all, and this isa very fundamental kind of an error that Democrats make, I think.Even very smart Democrats make this mistake. MR. WATTENBERG: Like our panel -- like part of our panel. MS. KIRKPATRICK: The fact is that those of us who participated init called it a Reagan revolution. It did in fact rather dramaticallyreverse a lot of the directions that the U.S. government had beengoing for a long time, and it returned a lot of power to people whohad been effectively disenfranchised in Democratic bureaucracies andthe highly structured kinds of power structures of the DemocraticParty. I think that the Republicans -- MR. MARSHALL: You know, Dr. Kirkpatrick, I think you're abrilliant woman. I can't figure out what you're talking about. MS.KIRKPATRICK: Yeah, I know. Well, I don't -- MR. MARSHALL: You bankrupted the country in four years. MS. KIRKPATRICK: You don't make any sense to me, either, quitefrankly. [Laughter.] When I listen to you talk about what theAmerican people want, I think, you know, this is what the IPS hasbeen saying for about 40 years, this is -- since it was founded, andthe American people, the majority of the American people haverejected it every time they have had the opportunity. Each time theyhave recognized the kind of, quote, change that you're proposing, theAmerican people turn out in great majorities and vote for theopposition. And that's what they keep doing. Now, I think there's a message in this, and the biggest message ofall is, leave our society alone, you know, respect American society,respect American culture, and find some simple solutions to our veryreal problems. MR. WATTENBERG: Are you thinking of running for national office? MS. KIRKPATRICK: Me? MR. WATTENBERG: Yes. MS. KIRKPATRICK: No. MR. WATTENBERG: Michael Beschloss, what do you think theRepublicans should do? MR. BESCHLOSS: I think they should do what they have been doing.The Republicans during all the years after the New Deal basicallystuck to a position, which was of limited government, opposition tothe New Deal notion of government. That was destined to make them aminority party for a long time. Their function for roughly the 60years after 1932 was to moderate and limit and edit some of theexcesses that Democratic majorities in Congress and also in the WhiteHouse committed. That's what the role for Democratic Party is goingto be, likely, for the next 10 or 20 years. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Thank you all very much. Thank you, JeaneKirkpatrick, Michael Beschloss, Will Marshall, and Bob Borosage. And thank you. As you know, we enjoy hearing from you. Pleasecontinue to send your comments and questions to: New River Media,1150 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20036. Or we can be reach bye-mail at thinktv@aol.com. For'Think Tank,' I'm Ben Wattenberg. END Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc. ©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved. 
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