campaign fever, take two

[[ updated and reposted due to technical difficulties encountered while posting "campaign fever," which got cut off halfway. This is the entire post I intended for publication yesterday, January 18.]]

I’m starting to see signs that certain not-starry-eyed Democratic partisans do indeed see the forest for the trees. But first, let me set this up with an observation from Mr. Hitchens about the fog of excitement that prevents a lot of observers who should know better from seeing reality during this exciting but also totally over-hyped run-up to the election:

I remember going to several of the mass events generated by Colin Powell’s memoirs a few years ago, and being very touched by the eagerness with which young and old “white” people hoped he would give them the chance to elect (what would in fact have been) our first West Indian president. It was all book-tour hype as it turned out — I could have told you that then — but now it has resurfaced in a similarly naÔve way. Not to dampen any parade, but if one asks if there is a single thing about Mr. Obama’s Senate record, or state legislature record, or current program, that could possibly justify his claim to the presidency one gets . . . what? Not much. Similarly lightweight unqualified “white” candidates have overcome this objection, to be sure, but what kind of standard is that?

And now let me get back to my point. The other day, I noticed (and noted) Arianna Huffington’s surprising tack toward Iraq and the war on terror as a continuing issue for Democrats.

As Arianna Huffington wrote yesterday, Iraq and the ìwar on terrorismî are still major concerns for the electorate. Today, sheís declaring Hillary the winner in the debate last night and encouraging Hillary to stay on this theme. (I donít know why Arianna is taking this pro-Hillary stance. I thought she was a Hillary hater. Goes to show you how much I know. I havenít been following along to see who in the media is on whose side in the campaign.)

Now comes Tom Edsall, also (coincidentally? I think not) writing in the HuffPo about the possibility that the Dems might get “blindsided” by “terror issues”:

While many Democratic strategists are confident that the deteriorating economy virtually assures the victory of their presidential candidate on November 4, there is a quiet debate over whether the party and prospective nominee are likely to get blindsided by Republicans raising issues of terrorism and national security. …

Anyone who read what Karl Rove had to say (I wrote about it here, in a post titled “Resurrecting Rudy“) will, of course, not be surprised to hear that the Republicans still consider national security their strong suit—so when this comes up in the national election, it will not be a matter of the Dems being blindsided but rather of their misreading the electorate. See, there are a lot of people in America who are actually deeply concerned about national security (I didn’t say fearful of terrorism; I said deeply concerned about national security). We read the papers, we read widely on the Internet, we read blogs, we watch TV, we read books, we think for ourselves, and we see external threats to America—not as “Republican talking points” but as real. And then there’s the rest of the electorate—the uninformed masses. They too get some information—a lot of it in the form of reductive crap that I call “infotainment”—but they get the message. This is the kind of thing I’m talking about: punchy and straight to the point:

You may laugh at this, dear readers, since you are such an educated bunch. But you overlook its impact at your peril if you’re a Democrat who says “phooey!” about the “war on terrorism,” because unless your candidate acknowledges this issue as deeply important, he or she will lose.

Let us not forget, for example, that the United States is still engaged in a war in Iraq. Primary voters may be looking for “change,” but the electorate has not forgotten that change in Iraq, for example, will come slowly—for us and for Iraq.

Various Dems and liberals (a catch-all) tell Edsall not to be alarmed—the electorate is interested in lots of issues, especially the economy. But Brian Katulis tells Edsall something else entirely: that the Dems still have no coherent “narrative” about national security [e.a.]:

“I wouldn’t say that Democrats have avoided national security as much as they have not yet developed a coherent narrative that simply goes beyond ‘Bush screwed things up.’….Conservatives have an overarching story when it comes to talking about national security - it’s not dissimilar to Bush’s narrative: there are bad people out there, we need to go out there and try to kill them ourselves before they get us. Simplistic, and applied to many different threats, but it’s kind of an easy story line….

“It’s those political consulting classes on the Democratic side who are particularly wounded and still operating on the defensive when it comes to national security - which is truly a stunning thing when you think about it, given all of the strategic errors conservatism is responsible for on the national security front the last seven years.

“So I think there’s a sweet spot for Democrats to actually say something that connects the dots on the national security and terrorism front - one that actually responds to a need from the American people to hear a viable alternative - but we’re just not hearing it yet at that political communications level.”

So now we know why Arianna greeted Hillary’s “ready to take on Al Qaeda from day one” debate-scoring point with such enthusiasm. (Whew. I hate mysteries. And bravo to Arianna for trying to rescue the Democrats from the deep pile of shit they’re about to drown in.) Katulis sums up the Democrats’ big problem: they have no story about how they’re going to deal with national security.

[From the Democrats, we're] seeing and hearing tick lists that make the broader public’s eyes glaze over. On the conservative side, we hear a story line - a batshit crazy one for the most part that got us in the predicament that we’re in now, but hey, it’s a story. Most people would rather go to a movie that has a plot.“

This may sound silly to you, dear readers, but it is the crux of the election: 9/11 woke up our government and many of its servants to the reality of the external threats facing America. Every day there is ample evidence that hot spots the world over could flare up at any moment, drawing the United States into their fury. It is beyond foolish to think otherwise, and to try to tell the American electorate, as the Dems are doing, “Don’t worry. We’ll deal when the time comes.” It will not wash.

For an indication of just how confused the progressive community is on the issue of foreign policy, check out these dueling posts from Matthew Yglesias, for whom it is utterly clear that the United States has no business messing in the affairs of any other nation, and Shadi Hamid, who begs to differ.

Their argument appears to be between old school liberal interventionists (Hamid) and new isolationists/realists (Yglesias), and it probably mirrors the incoherence inside the Democratic Party and the progressive community about America’s foreign policy (I don’t know for sure, because I don’t follow their arguments: I was on the interventionist side in Kosovo and Iraq; I don’t need to make up my mind again).

It will be interesting to see which way the eventual Democratic candidate goes, and what ensues in the party afterward. Either way, there is no excuse for the Democrats to get blindsided. There are only ways for them to be blind.