Washington Post op-ed:
Where Are the Democrats?
By Richard Cohen
Thursday, March 24, 2005; Page A19
Rep. Tom DeLay is called "The Hammer." He is a man of fierce beliefs who has long confused politics with war -- religious war at that. At one time he would have been labeled an "extremist," the sort of politician whom reporters seek out for colorful, wacko quotes. But now he is in the GOP mainstream where, among other things, he has bludgeoned the Democratic Party into pathetic meekness. On the Terri Schiavo debate, the party went AWOL....Most of them seemed to be cowering in some bunker, calling their consultants and pollsters, asking what they should do and how they should do it. Please, have a memo on the desk by morning.
You could call this a misreading of public sentiment, and it is that, for sure. When the instant pollsters reported on their instant polls, it turned out that by lopsided majorities the public was appalled at what Congress had done. By a margin of 63 percent to 28 percent, an ABC News poll said Americans supported the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. An even larger majority -- 70 percent -- opposed Congress getting into the act. And for some reason, 67 percent of those polled said Congress was more interested in scoring political points than in Terry Schiavo's fate. As they say in the red states, amen to that....
***
....for me the real loser was the Democratic Party. It showed that it's almost totally without leadership. If there is a national figure (other than Barney Frank) who stood up and took on the GOP in this matter, his -- or her -- name does not come to mind. In the Senate, oddly enough, it was Virginia's John Warner who pointed out that he opposed the bill -- and he's a Republican, for goodness' sake. The Democrats were nowhere.
It's not hard to understand why. A vote against the bill would almost certainly be used by some future campaign as a vote in favor of putting Schiavo to death. In a quick TV spot, that sort of stuff can do real damage. At the same time, a fair number of Democrats who were appalled by the bill were reluctant to put their colleagues on the spot. It might have been okay for Ted Kennedy or John Kerry to oppose the bill -- they come from Massachusetts, after all -- but it could be a different story for some Democrat whose state is not quite so blue. Out of consideration for the imperiled, some tongues were clearly held. Still, it seemed that the party's highest principle was to have almost none at all.
Once again, it was a Republican -- Christopher Shays of Connecticut -- who got it right. "This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy," he said....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61694-2005Mar23.html?nav%3Dmost_emailed_emailfriend&sub=ARON EDIT: I posted this piece in response to a poll posted in LBN by struggle4progress, in which we come out hardly better than the Republicans --
Polling Data
Do you approve or disapprove of the way each of the following has handled the case involving Terri Schiavo?
President Republicans Democrats The Media
Approve 31% 26% 28% 43%
Disapprove 52% 47% 42% 46%
Unsure 17% 27% 30% 11%
Source: Gallup / CNN / USA Today
Methodology: Telephone interviews to 620 American adults, conducted from on Mar. 22, 2005. Margin of error is 4 per cent.
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewItem&itemID=6471
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