"KISS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY GOODBYE"

September 15, 2008 

Robert Redford, a liberal Democrat and an Obama supporter, speaking this July at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, commented that if Barack Obama loses the 2008 presidential election, “you can kiss the Democratic Party goodbye.”

Redford is better known for his acting and movie making than for his political predictions. Although Obama has had a couple of rough weeks and currently is behind in the polls, he led McCain by several points when Redford made his statement. Nevertheless, Redford raises an interesting point.

An Obama loss would have profound implications for the future of the Democratic Party. The party likely will survive, but a loss will send it into a tailspin from which it will take a long time to recover. African Americans will be disappointed and demoralized. Clinton and Obama supporters will struggle bitterly with each other for party control and to revamp the primary process, arguing over why they lost and what they need to do to win in 2012. Democratic women will become an even greater force to be reckoned with. The infighting could get quite nasty.

How long it takes for them to recover depends on how quickly they come to terms with the real reason they lost. It won't be because Barack Obama was black or too inexperienced or because Republicans stole the election or Obama didn't select Hillary as his running mate. It will be because Obama was too liberal.

Since Richard Nixon won the 1968 election, Democrats have held the presidency for just 12 of the past 40 years. Jimmy Carter barely won the 1976 election. Arguably, Carter won because of the country’s reaction to Watergate, Nixon’s resignation, and Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon. Bill Clinton was the only other successful Democrat and the only one since Franklin Roosevelt to win reelection to a second term.

Political scientists and pundits like to compare multiple data points from past elections and draw conclusions based on suppositions about them. But there have only been 55 presidential elections over the past 220 years; hardly a statistically significant number, especially when you consider the span of time over which they have taken place.

One can argue that the single overriding reason Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry lost is that they were too liberal. Indeed, since Clinton, the Democratic Party’s nominees have become increasingly liberal. Al Gore is more liberal than Bill Clinton, John Kerry is more liberal than Al Gore, and Barack Obama is more liberal than John Kerry.

The nominating processes in both the Democratic and Republican parties are controlled by the activists on the left and the right respectively. That’s why Democrats have tended to nominate candidates more liberal than the Democratic Party as a whole, and Republicans, with the exception of John McCain, have tended to nominate more conservative candidates. When you consider that America is a right-of-center country, Republicans have had an advantage in the past 10 elections, regardless of voter party identification.

The Democratic Party, a coalition of multiple diverse special-interest groups on the left, has become increasingly controlled by its more liberal elements. The prominence and influence of organizations like MoveOn.org is a prime indicator.

Many Democrats, of course, blame Republicans for stealing the 2000 and 2004 elections with "lies and swift-boat tactics." If they lose again in another close election, they likely will do the same. Barack Obama already has declared that he doesn’t intend to let Republicans steal this election.

Nevertheless, if Obama loses, it could spark a civil war that either reshapes the Democratic Party, wresting control from the far left, or tears it apart altogether. You’ll know the war has begun when the media fires the first shots.

As Peggy Noonan wrote in her September 12 column in the Wall Street Journal, “The mainstream media may themselves come down on Mr. Obama. They like him, but if he doesn't come back and make this a race, he'll embarrass them. They just might be on the edge of getting angry, having been left exposed. Forget what Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin can do to Mr. Obama: If he embarrasses the media, they'll kill him."

The two-party system has been the foundation of American democracy since our country's beginning. It has provided the system of checks and balances that has kept successive American governments from the radical extremes of the political spectrum.

Whether Republicans and mainstream conservatives will admit it or not, they know they are better off when they have a strong moderate Democratic opposition, represented by Democrats like those who are members of the Democratic Leadership Council. It makes it a lot easier to reach consensus and do what’s right for America. In the long run, a good civil war in the Democratic Party may be just what’s needed to bring that about. Of course, Obama has to lose first.