More Majority

by digby

Yesterday when I mentioned Hastert’s “majority of the majority” tactics in this post, I didn’t realize that others in the blogosphere were chattering about the same topic for different reasons. (I’ve been busy.) Sam Rosenfeld at TAPPED flagged this article in the NY Times blog which says that Speaker Pelosi has been as good as her word and not governed with the ruthless partisanship that Hastert did. Rosenfeld disagrees (in a good way):

In his New York Times web column, Carl Hulse argues that there is a stark contrast between the leadership style of Nancy Pelosi and that of her predecessor Dennis Hastert in that Pelosi seems to have abandoned Hastert’s “majority of the majority” doctrine, where only bills that had majority support from the leader’s party are pushed. Pelosi broke with that notion in bringing the Iraq supplemental bill to passage. However, that’s Hulse’s only example. I think the war supplemental has to be thought of as fairly sui generis, not merely given the issue at hand but also the fact that disputes over war policy play out in the American political context as fights over “must-pass” funding bills for troops and personnel on the ground.

Generally speaking, while it’s certainly true that Pelosi emphasizes in public comments how she differs from the old Republican leadership in her approach and disavows the Hastert doctrine, it’s safe to say that the increased polarization and party cohesion that constituted the central story of American congressional politics in the last few decades have continued apace under the Democrats. (Which is a good thing.) Divided government may explain at least some of the discrepancy we might see, since there’s still a president of the opposite party around competing to set the agenda and put issues before Congress that might divide the congressional majority.

That last bit is extremely important. Hastert governed with a majority of a majority when they had control of both houses of congress and the presidency. From 2000 to 2006 the Bush White House treated the congress like its lackey and the GOP congress dutifully tugged its forelock and did as it was told. It was, therefore, political kabuki, designed not to inhibit legislation (which could have been vetoed anyway by the Republican White House if it was the outcome they were afraid of.) It was designed, with the help of the White House, to keep the Republican moderates and Democrats from even being able to cast a (losing) vote they could take to their constituents. That is entirely different than the Democratic majority right now trying to keep their squishy moderates from handing the Republicans substantial victories going into a big presidential election.

I do believe that the Democrats should generally make it very difficult for moderates to vote against the party right now because the risk of moderates losing seats is, in my judgment, about as low as we can ever hope for and the upside of gaining seats with a little bit of bold political persuasion is actually quite high. If not now, when?

I also believe that every every vote should be in furtherance of gaining enough power in 2008 to end this travesty of Republican rule and every argument must be in furtherance of progressive ideas. Now is the time to make the case for a Democratic agenda whenever politicians have their constituents’ ears. Democratic values been nearly shut out of the dialog for more than six years (longer actually) and we are dealing with a media that is so entranced by entertainment values that they are virtually useless for conveying any real information. Politicians and their surrogates must use every opportunity to direct the conversation now to what Democrats stand for and what they want to do.

The Republicans understood one thing very well (even as they used that knowledge to degrade the congress) and that was that the optics of legislation are important. In our current environment, it’s terribly important that even if the Dems don’t fully implement the “majority of the majority” tactic, they keep a very close eye on how all their legislation plays out in a macro sense with the media and the public. Normally, I would assume that this needn’t be openly said, it’s so obvious. But their spin was so bad after the Iraq vote that it’s clear it needs to be. You can’t spin compost into cotton candy and they need to recognize that if they are going to “compromise” with the administration in this polarized environment they are going to have to do a better job of explaining themselves. (And they simply must learn to discipline their rhetoric — this use of GOP talking points is the single most self- destructive thing they do. I do not understand why they can’t break themselves of that habit.)