Summary: Once regarded as spineless, willing to cave, and prepared to be washed away on their own fear pee every time a Republican said “boo!”, Democrats on Capitol Hill seem to have rediscovered their backbones in the confrontation over Obamacare and the government shutdown. Yet, newly emboldened Democrats need to cherish a famously cranky and unpredictable base, working to ensure that Democrats don’t just sit out the midterm elections of 2014. Democrats at every level need to put Democratic partisanship in command and have the courage of our convictions. Fortunately, Republicans are doing a very good job of once again scaring the bejeesus out of uncommitted and Democratic-leaning voters. However, there are still too many Democratic squishes (pace Ted Cruz) who seem naïvely willing to damage their party and betray their constituents by attempting to “reach across the aisle.” Here in California 36th congressional district, our Democratic Congressman, Raul Ruiz, was one of only nine Democrats to vote in support of Republican sponsored amendment to delay the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act. Right now, many of his constituents feel as betrayed by him as a wife would who finds that her husband has been whoring around with other men on the down low. Dr. Ruiz needs to come clean and get right with his base, lest he find himself facing a primary challenger from his left in 2014. We didn’t vote to send a squish to Washington.
By: Paul S Marchand
Democrats once had a reputation for spinelessness. Over the course of many years, the Democratic Party had come to be regarded as one that would shrink from confrontation with Republicans, one that would cave on major issues, leaving the Democratic base stranded out in the cold.
Those days, thankfully, appear to be over. I noted the other day the pleasantly surprised tone of an article in the Daily Kos on the fact that Congressional Democrats in both Houses were standing firm and not caving against the Republican temper tantrum and its consequent government shutdown. Indeed, it’s nice to know that the Party seems to recovering some backbone, and that Democrats are no longer willing to let themselves get washed away by their own fear pee every time Republican stamps his or her foot and yells “boo!”
Of course, the sudden recovery of spine by Congressional Democrats is no guarantee that the Democratic base, famously cranky and unpredictable, will rally to Democrats next year. To a certain extent, we Democrats may have to rely on our “friends” in the GOP to do some of the work of rallying our base for us. By sabotaging their own brand, Republicans may have the effect of scaring the bejeesus out of and driving uncommitted voters toward the Democracy and also of calling disillusioned, squishy Democrats home to their own Party.
In tandem with Republican efforts not merely to kick, but actually to dance on, the turd, Democrats must also re-proselytize their own voters, keeping before them the dismal catalog of bad GOP behavior. We Democrats dare not fall back into our fatal pattern of over-trusting our electorate. Too often, Democrats manifest a childlike, naïve belief that if we just give voters the raw data, those voters will spontaneously perform the appropriate analysis and reach the correct conclusion.
Of course, this is not the case. While I do not necessarily mean to suggest that the masses are asses, many low-information voters simply lack the intellectual infrastructure to be able to process those raw data and come to the conclusion we desire them to reach. Republicans, on the other hand, don’t feel the apparent compunction we do about spoon feeding their base the answers. In short, the institutional Party needs to cherish and handhold its voters far better that it has done. We can’t afford to make the mistake the Obama administration has made with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as “Obamacare.”
If we don’t do a better job marketing our message prior to the midterms of 2014, many Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters will succumb to the same kind of apathy that caused Democrats to stay home in droves during the disastrous midterm elections of 2010. Hopefully, however, the astonishing and welcome unity of the Democratic caucuses on Capitol Hill will serve as a model and an inspiration for local Democratic parties around the country as we prepare to muster our troops for what may well be one of the most consequential midterm elections in recent history. At this moment, Democrats, particularly Democrats in local party organizations, must put their partisanship in command. We dare not fall into the trap William Butler Yeats described in his classic poem “The Second Coming,” in which he lamented that
“[t]he best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
By putting partisanship in command, I mean that Democrats must give up certain behaviors they had considered comfortable. Democrats must, for example, discard the foolish, politically heretical idea that there is no practical difference between the parties. That’s what cost Al Gore the presidency of the United States in 2000, when foolish, arrogant, solipsistic Ralph Nader voters insisted, against all evidence, that Democrats and Republicans were “all alike.”
Furthermore, Democrats must neither engage in nor tolerate the uniquely American behavior of trying to blame both sides. Pari delicto (both parties are equally at fault) is not an option, it is a recipe for self-defeating self sabotage. The next time a Democrat hears the phrase “I blame both sides,” a loyal Democrat must quickly rise to the defense of the Party, and make sure the blame is cast where properly belongs, with the GOP.
Additionally, Democrats need to stand with the President. Yes, we all know that Barack Obama has not delivered the Utopia many of us wanted him to deliver, yesterday. Utopia will never be attained in a day, or even in the quadrennium granted a president by the Constitution. Anytime a Democrat complains that the President has not done enough, remind that wayward Democrat of what this President has in fact accomplished.
Finally, at a time when the party opposite has reduced governance to a form of grim and hateful trench warfare, in which no prisoners are taken and no quarter granted, in which a small group of willful and arrogant House members —along with Ted “Joe McCarthy’s bastard child” Cruz— have contrived, in the words of President Woodrow Wilson, “to make the United States appear weak and contemptible in the eyes of the world,” Democrats cannot afford the naïve and frivolous luxury of trying to “reach across the aisle.”
Unfortunately, some Democratic members of Congress have made the rookie mistake of playing directly into the Tea Party’s hands with such foolish posturing. A couple of days ago, the House voted on a Republican sponsored amendment to delay the implementation of the individual mandate on Obamacare for a year. Nine Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with a united Republican caucus to support the delay. These Democrats bolted from their caucus, and let the Party down very badly.
Tea Party bomb thrower Ted Cruz has a word for politicians who won’t stand with their caucus. That word is “squish.” It may with justice be applied to each of the nine Democratic squishes who crossed the aisle and voted with the Tea Party, impliedly supporting the GOP’s effort to sabotage Obamacare.
Sadly, one of those Democratic squishes was Congressman Raul Ruiz, of California’s 36th Congressional District. Ruiz has claimed in public that he was attempting to be conciliatory and “reach across the aisle.”
With the GOP willing to shut down the United States government in a last-ditch, desperate attempt to prevent the implementation of Obamacare, every vote on that issue becomes, in effect, a litmus test and a statement of conviction about the member’s position on the Affordable Care Act. If Congressman Ruiz secretly has reservations about the ACA, he certainly concealed them very effectively from the many thousands of Democrats who elected him to Congress last November, in part to defend the Affordable Care Act. If that is the case, then Raul Ruiz may well find himself a one term congressman; the base does not like to be played for fools.
On the other hand, if Congressman Ruiz was attempting to engage in some kind of naïvely hopeful “reaching across the aisle,” then he made a rookie mistake that verges on being unpardonable given the current political climate. To the extent that Congressman Ruiz allowed political naivety to push him into making such an elementary blunder, then it is clear that he can be played like a Stradivarius by the party opposite. We partisan Democrats can only hope that a spirited discussion between him and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will recall him from so foolish an error.
Because it may be that getting spanked by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer will be a lot more palatable to Congressman Ruiz than facing the possibility of a primary challenge by a stronger, more committed, more partisan Democrat in 2014.
The last thing Raul Ruiz needs right now is to gain a reputation, barely 9 months into his term, as an unreliable squish, as a DINO. Already, on comment threads and in discussions among Democrats throughout the district, a wave of anger against Congressman Ruiz has become palpable. If you are a first-term congressman, logic suggests you should try to conciliate your base. Right now, much of Congressman Ruiz’s base feels betrayed, and is nurturing the same kind of anger that a wife might feel whose husband has been whoring around with other men on the down low.
Dr. Ruiz’s base has the right to expect from him a certain level of commitment, and a certain level of loyalty to the Party of which he is a member. To borrow Ricky Ricardo’s line from I Love Lucy, “Raul, You got some 'splainin' to do!” And whatever explanation Congressman Ruiz proffers to his upset and angry base will need to be clear, convincing, credible, and repentant.
Years ago, a Democratic Congresswoman of my acquaintance compared bolting the caucus to an unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. I may be prepared, for the sake of my personal friendship with the Congressman, to consider the possibility of absolution, but absolution requires true repentance and the doing of appropriate penance. Whatever explanations Congressman Ruiz proffers to his base will need to be made not for pardon only, but for redemption, not for solace only, but for strength.
Right now, Dr. Ruiz is a very bad place. He has managed to alienate his friends while gaining no traction among his enemies. He should have known better, and this Democratic activist is hugely disappointed in the Congressman’s astonishingly jejune performance. I’m not sure I’m prepared to be let down the garden path again. Already, there is talk of finding a 2014 primary challenger from the left who won’t be an unreliable squish.
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Paul S Marchand is an attorney who lives and practices in Cathedral City, California. He currently serves as a vice chair of the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee, and is a constituent of Congressman Ruiz who voted for him in the 2012 election cycle. The views contained herein are Mr. Marchand’s own, and not necessarily those of the Central Committee, though they do appear to be congruent with the views of substantial number of Mr. Marchand’s fellow Democrats in the 36th Congressional District. They are not intended, and should not be construed as, any form of legal advice.
