Some Democratic leaders apparently believe that their ideal candidate is a vacuum, a cipher, a human "to let" sign who can become the repository for a voter's -- or a contributor's -- technocratic daydreams. The architect of this strategy appears to be Rep. Steve Israel, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
There's a problem with Israel's strategy: The President of the United States, the head of the Democratic Party, is about to formally propose cuts to Social Security -- cuts which are opposed by 69 percent of senior voters, who vote disproportionately in off-year elections -- and are also opposed by majorities or pluralities of voters across the political spectrum.
If Democrats in Congress back their President's measure in significant numbers, it will make their re-election fights much tougher. It will also allow Republicans to fill in the human blank spaces Israel and the DCCC are putting up for office. How would they go about doing that?
Memories Are Made of This
We already know. In 2010 they capitalized on Obama's budgetary wafflings over Medicare and Social Security by creating a "Seniors' Bill of Rights" and running to Democrats' left on these issues. Only five years after the GOP's wildly unpopular attempt to privatize the program, Obama was less trusted that George W. Bush on Social Security -- and Democrats had squandered their 25-point lead on the issue.
Rep. Israel and his fellow party officials seem to think that they can win by presenting candidates like Strouse, Eldridge, and Graham as if they were protagonists in a political version of Total Recall, rocketed onto a political planet without known biographies or histories.
The problem is that the Republicans will write their histories for them. Party leaders won't "like the bios" coming out of GOP Headquarters and Fox News (if those two names aren't a redundancy). Candidates with no records, and no political convictions, will have them provided to them.
"Want to know what Strouse stands for?" they'll ask. "Look at his party's record on Social Security."
"Gwen Graham can solve 'complicated problems'," the campaign ads will say, "like cutting your benefits."
We're told that Israel is modeling his approach on that of Rahm Emanuel. The Post repeats the common error of crediting Emanuel with the Democrats' 2006 victory, which many non-partisan observers attribute instead to Howard Dean's shrewd "50-state strategy." But Emanuel had more powerful friends and better friends, and he emerged the victor after a bitter internecine battle with Dean.
We all know history is written by the victors.
One for the Books
Social Security can only be cut if Republicans agree to it, and they've wanted these cuts for years. They'd have to agree to a deal, then turn around and campaign against it. They wouldn't be that underhanded, would they?
That was a rhetorical question.
The betrayal's already started, before the deal's even done. Last month Republican Senator Lamar Alexander was quoted as saying "If the history books were written today, we would remember President Obama for the sequester" -- that brutal set of pre-packaged austerity cuts that were jointly agreed upon both parties.
It's grossly unfair to blame one side for an austerity package they both accepted. It's also smart politics.
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