"Democrats Make New Friends, And Try to Keep The Old"

Dan Balz (WaPo):

Shortly after last year's midterm elections, a group of wealthy Democratic donors who had been trying to plot the future of their party gathered in Miami for a meeting that included a keynote address by former New York governor Mario Cuomo.

The donors were in a buoyant mood after the Democratic victories but Cuomo quickly brought them back to earth. Democrats had won, he said, because of a gift -- the Bush administration's bungling of the war in Iraq.

Without Iraq, he said, Democrats had only a timid agenda to offer the country. "It leaves you in the same position you were in in 2004 -- without an issue," Cuomo told them. "Because you have no big idea."

New York Times Magazine writer Matt Bai writes about that moment at the end of his new book, "The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics." As the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination enters a more serious phase, Bai's engaging and entertaining book is both timely and instructive, raising anew the question: What do the Democrats stand for?

This is a question that frustrates many in the party -- activists and elected officials alike. They see the Republican Party floundering and divided over a post-Bush governing blueprint and wonder why the focus so often turns to whether the Democrats have a coherent philosophy and a set of ideas to match.

But as Cuomo reminded his Miami audience in late 2006, one big idea outweighs a mountain of position papers, and on that score, he and others still find the Democrats lacking.

Bai has told the story of a Democratic Party in transition through a lens not often used, which is to say from outside the Beltway and from the perspective of the activists on the left, rather than the establishment in the capital. It is the story of a new force in Democratic politics struggling to be heard -- and struggling among themselves over ideas, strategy and tactics.

This new force -- from MoveOn.org to prominent and not-so-prominent bloggers to rich Democrats like George Soros -- is decidedly anti-Clintonian, if not specifically anti-Clinton. Revulsion at the politics of triangulation that defined Clinton's presidency after the Republican landslide of 1994 shapes the thinking of many in this movement. As does Iraq.

One riveting scene in the book finds Bill Clinton losing his temper while addressing the wealthy donors who made up the Democracy Alliance during a retreat in Austin in May 2006. Pressed by Guy Saperstein, a wealthy civil rights lawyer, over why Democrats who had voted for the resolution authorizing the Iraq war shouldn't apologize, Clinton erupted.

"You're just wrong. Everything you just said is totally wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong," he said, according to Bai's account.

This power of the antiwar sentiment has been evident in the battle for the Democratic nomination today. Antiwar anger among progressive Democrats has pushed the candidates to the left in what has threatened to become a bidding war over who can offer the most provocative plan for ending the war.

It has led New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to call for removing all U.S. forces, a plan that Democrats like Sen. Joseph Biden call totally implausible, given security needs to protect U.S. civilians in Baghdad alone.

It has led Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Chris Dodd to vote against legislation to keep funding the war. It has led John Edwards to taunt his Senate-based rivals to stand up and just stop the war now -- although his own plan falls somewhat short of that.

The argument Bai describes in his book is about far more than Iraq. It is about the struggle of the Democratic Party to move past the Clinton era and the debate over how much of that political philosophy to retain and how much to revise or simply jettison. He is unsparing in his description of the activists' efforts to do so to date. What success Democrats had in 2006 was, as Cuomo suggested, largely a gift from Bush and the Republicans.

Navigating through the new and old forces within the Democratic Party, as Bai makes clear, is far from easy. That this is a different Democratic Party than the one Clinton restored to power in 1992 is without question. Yet the challenge today is not fundamentally different, which is adapting long-standing principles to a new era and offering a fresh governing agenda that is grounded in political reality.

Ultimately it will be left to the next Democratic nominee to resolve this debate by defining the party's future identity. There are signs of convergence among the candidates over certain policies -- ending the war but not abruptly; providing universal health care; rolling back Bush's tax cuts; reengaging diplomatically to restore American prestige; reducing dependence on foreign oil.

It is not yet clear that any of the candidates have successfully elevated these proposals beyond the level of list-making. That is what the Democratic nomination battle -- and ultimately the general election campaign -- will be about. Bai's account of the party's struggles to date raises the right questions and sets the stage for what's to come.

Howie P.S.: Balz gives us the "fair and balanced" view, from inside the Beltway.