Dark days for Democrats.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: The Word from Washington

How could it happen that the same day SEC chairman Harvey Pitt resigned in disgrace the Administration that put Pitt and the other corporate foxes in charge of the chicken coop scored their greatest political victory?

Interpreting the House and Senate sweep in the midterm elections as a "mandate," the Republicans are now emboldened to continue selling out the public interest, unencumbered by worries that voters might get fed up and throw them out.

It is truly remarkable that the Democrats managed to lose seats in the House and control of the Senate in a year when such flagrant outrages as Enron, WorldCom, Harken, and Halliburton were hitting the front pages and personally implicating Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. Add to that an economic slump, a drive to war that so far has thin public support, and a general sense of unease and vulnerability to terrorism, and you had a recipe for a powerful Democratic opposition. Instead, for the first time in living memory, the party that doesn't control the White House lost Congressional seats in the midterm after a Presidential election.

What gives?

The short answer is that the Dems failed to distinguish themselves. As opportunity after opportunity presented itself to clearly define a political opposition, the Democratic leadership in Congress talked about the need for compromise. The Democratic Leadership Council fretted about appeasing suburban white male voters. Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle promoted a tax plan that was a little less unfair than the Bush giveaway to the rich. Democratic candidates across the nation used B-school phrases like "corporate mismanagement" instead of the Naderesque "corporate crime." In recent weeks, Democrats in Congress gave the President carte blanche to wage war on Iraq, while voicing a few concerns that Bush had not really made a case that Baghdad was directly connected to terrorism, and that the President really ought to try to develop a dear plan and justification for a preemptive strike before dropping the bombs.

A lot of blame for the mid-term massacre goes to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who mapped out a strategy of supporting the war with Iraq in order to make it possible to brush the whole issue aside and focus on other matters. This was a doomed effort. The White House successfully kept the focus on its endless run-up to war. Nor did the Democrats feel any more confident focusing on the issues they could have used to bludgeon the Republicans...