It appears as though the single worst enemy the Democratic Party has is itself. John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and other liberal Democratic Senators are planning to try and block the Alito nomination with a filibuster that has a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding. Already, several other Democrats have openly said that the idea of a filibuster is foolish, including Rep. Harold Ford and Senator Barack Obama.

It’s not surprising that John Kerry would support such a filibuster, he’s trying to ingratiate himself with the radical left in the Democratic Party, and a pointless show of obstructionism is just his style. However, one would think that Senator Clinton would not wish to make herself out to be an obstructionist liberal when she’s been triangulating like crazy in advance of 2008. Then again, Clinton probably figures that an Alito filibuster will give her enough liberal street cred for Blue New York in 2006 – and given the weakness of the New York GOP, it’s not like she has any real need to triangulate for the benefit of upstate voters.

The question here is why the Senate liberals would bother with such obviously futile effort – an act which is not only doomed to failure, but dividing their own party as well. What this speaks to is the power of the far-left liberal base within the Democratic Party these days. Joan Vennochi of The Boston Globe editorializes on this shift to the left:

Calling for a filibuster is a late, blatant bow to the left. It seemed more theatrical than realistic. Still, any such bowing from Massachusetts helps the Bush administration. ”Bring it on,” chortled the Wall Street Journal after Kerry announced his effort to rally fellow Democrats from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. There, the Journal snidely observed, he was ”communing with his political base.”

Calling for a filibuster makes political sense for Kennedy, who is adored by every left-wing constituency in America. He isn’t running for national office; he can afford to stick to strict liberal principle. He wants to go down fighting. For Kennedy, a filibuster call mollifies the left at no political cost. It is also an attempt to make up for the obvious: He used the wrong tone and tactics during the hearings. Going after Alito as a bigot backfired. Forget about Mrs. Alito’s tears. The moment Kennedy was exposed for belonging to a discriminatory college fraternal organization, it was over. He lost the moral high ground.

Kerry’s enthusiasm for a filibuster is harder to fathom, except as more of the same from a perpetually tone-deaf politician.

The Democrats have been given an excellent chance to run to the center, exploit the weaknesses of the Republicans, and vault themselves into a majority in Congress. It’s exactly what the Republicans did in 1994 – they didn’t run on their hatred of Clinton, they ran on the Contract for America and an anti-corruption agenda. The Democrats haven’t done anything that savvy, and the further to the left they move to placate the “netroots activists” the harder it is to later try and say that they’re a party that can govern from the center.

This ridiculous filibuster threat is yet another sign of how internally divided the Democratic coalition really is. Even when the Republicans are at their weakest, the Democrats still can’t seem to get it together. On national security, the Democrats remain clueless. Their advantages on domestic issues end up being negated by foolish acts of partisanship, an uninspired and ravenously partisan leadership, and the (largely correct) perception that Democrats are hostile to the values of many of the people who would normally be a natural constituency. So long as those trends continue, the Democrats will, and should, remain a minority party.

Stephen Green asks why the Democrats just can’t seem to win:

Look at me. I’m pro-choice. I support gay marriage. I think porn is OK and that drugs (which aren’t OK) ought to be legal. My taste in music and movies and entertainers are a lot more New York and LA than they are Nashville or Branson.

But with the exceptions of maybe Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman, there’s not a Democrat today I’d vote for without first chewing through my own forehead.

Democrats: I’m your target voter! Appeal to me! I’m sick of the Republicans already! Don’t make me perform impossible physical acts! Please!

But they won’t listen and, come November, I’ll vote for a bunch of Republicans again. (Although I’ll probably leave a bunch of choices blank.) I’ll feel bad about it, of course, but I’d feel even worse if I voted for a Democrat.

And I’m their target voter. Sheesh.

In other words, the Democratic Party is doomed.

I don’t think the Democrats are doomed – you can’t keep losing elections forever without someone like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan coming along to shake up the status quo. Our two-party equilibrium exists because both parties must compete for the middle. We don’t have a parliamentary system in which a small party can act as a kingmaker – the US’ political system has long followed Duverger’s Law – essentially since the beginning with the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.

The reason why the Democrats keep losing is simple: George W. Bush.

I’m not saying that Bush is some kind of political genius. Yes, Karl Rove is a brilliant strategist, but there’s nothing that Rove is doing that’s magic, and his success has far more to do with identifying Republican voters and getting them to the polls than to somehow duping the public.

No, the essential problem is that the Democratic Party is obsessed with George W. Bush. We’re talking full-out Ahab mode. Every issue is seen strictly through the prism of that obsession. It’s been that way since 2000, but the war in Iraq has caused even “mainstream” Democrats to come unhinged.

The Democrats have very little appeal to those who don’t already have a raging hatred of George W. Bush. They’re not even trying to preach to anyone else. Which might work if enough people share that hatred, but even those people who may disapprove of Bush’s performance aren’t going to vote for Joe Democrat just because George W. Bush is a big mean poopy-head.

Dick Meyer of CBS News gets it right and puts it simply:

The 2006 GOP/Rove platform can easily be put on an index card, if not a Post-it note. It reads something like this: we are at war against foreign terrorists who want to kill you and your society and we’ll do what it takes to stop it and the Democrats won’t; we will cut your taxes and give you money and Democrats won’t. Every Republican candidate in the country can spit that one out.

The controversy over domestic surveillance without warrants illustrates the efficient, black and white clarity of the Rovian message. Rove said, “Let me be as clear as I can: President Bush believes if al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they’re calling and why. Some important Democrats clearly disagree.”

Please draft a two sentence response that will work in a TV ad; my guess is it will sound as convoluted as John Kerry explaining why his vote for war was a vote against war.

Democrats thought the domestic surveillance revelations were a boon; if that were the case, why would the administration be devoting this week to a public campaign to trumpet the issue? Simple: because they think they have the gut punch: we’ll protect you, they won’t.

The Democrats are committing slow political suicide. They’re pushing back against their own moderates like Senator Lieberman and Senator Clinton (although Hillary’s “moderation” may itself be a ruse). They can’t hold an argument without engaging in a spittle-flecked diatribe about the President. They nominated Howard Freakin’ Dean as their party chairman. Influential strategists like Thomas Frank keep telling the Democrats to “frame” the same old arguments with a lot of preachy God-talk, ignoring the fact that it’s the content not the presentation that’s the problem.

The last successful period for the Democratic Party was the Clinton Administration. Bill Clinton, for all his personal flaws, knew how to appeal to the American public. He was committed to free trade, he lowered capital gains taxes in 1996, and his initiatives tended to be more of the “midnight basketball” type than his (and by “his” I mean “his wife’s”) attempts to socialize American healthcare. He drove Republicans crazy – almost as crazy as Bush makes Democrats – because he could so convincingly ingratiate himself to everyone. In 1994 the Republicans won on a broad program to reform government – they won in a landslide. In 1996 and 1998 they ran on the “we hate Bill Clinton and so should you” and they lost ground. There is a lesson here.

So long as the Democrats remain hyper-fixated on George W. Bush, they won’t win. So long as the anger of their party keeps boiling over, they won’t appeal to people like Stephen Green. So long as The Daily Kos represents the heart of the Democratic Party, they’ll be consigned to the political fringes.

Instead of wisely shifting the ground to subjects where they actually have some political advantages, they keep shifting the debate back to Bush’s strongest talking point – it’s like moths being attracted to the flame of a plasma welding torch. In 2002, the Democrats looked week on homeland security. In 2004, Kerry’s “global test” rhetoric and constant doubletalk showed he was utterly rudderless on the war. In 2006, the Democrats are positioning themselves once again as the party of vacillation and weakness in this war. If the Democrats were smart, they would have chided the President and immediately drafted a bill that would have reformed FISA – but then they couldn’t get their preening indignation pressed into the lens of every willing camera.

The truth is that while the GOP seems to be dropping the ball, the Democrats keep scoring points on the other side. Never in recent history has a party gone completely off the rails in such a dramatically self-destructive manner – and their hatred of Bush has them blinded to the realities of their situation.

Now, as a partisan, I take great amusement in all of this. However, I’m an American first and a partisan second. A vibrant democracy is incompatible with single-party rule. However, as Green notes, the Democrats are not providing an acceptable alternative for America. As bad as the Republican leadership has become on spending and as many ethical lapses and scandals as the GOP has had, when it comes right down to it, even a terrifically flawed GOP is better than the alternatives.

No wonder the Democrats are so angry – when you’ve convinced yourself that your political adversary is the epitome of ignorance and stupidity, the fact that he keeps outsmarting you at every turn has to be infuriating. However, if the Democrats don’t realize that unless they can preach to someone who isn’t already in the choir, hatred is all they’ll have when President Rice, McCain, Guiliani, Romney, Allen, or someone else is sworn in. You can’t win an election in this country on acrimony alone.

I’ve always been somewhat skeptical of the idea that the “blogosphere” can somehow be the great new frontier of media – most blogs a few years ago just added analysis to existing stories in the mainstream media. Granted, some of that analysis was brilliant, but it was still feeding off the MSM. However, today bloggers from Michael Totten to the many military bloggers worldwide, the blogosphere has provided first-hand coverage of events that has provided valuable new perspectives on a whole host of issues that the mainstream media simply won’t touch.

More proof that the blogosphere is a force to be reckoned with is the fact that all three of the GOP leadership candidates are reaching out to bloggers. Majority Leader contests have traditionally involved back-room politics – this is the first contact I can remember in my admittedly limited memory in which there’s been much of any public campaigning.

If bloggers had no impact, Shadegg, Boehner, and Blunt wouldn’t bother answering all these questions, but it is clear that the impact of blogs is being felt in Washington, and smart politicians are realizing that the best way to reach the base of their party (as well as others) is to utilize bloggers to get their messages out. There’s always a risk in that – bloggers don’t necessarily feel any compunction against pointing out where an answer was insufficient or stuffed with spin – but it’s clear policymakers are understanding that this new medium has an effect. Politicians are nothing if not self-interested, and if they’re utilizing a resource it’s because it’s in their advantage to do so. Ten years ago it would have been talk radio – today it’s the blogosphere.

All three candidates do deserve genuine praise for making this contest one of the most discussed and open leadership elections in the history of the Republican Party – or any American political party. The level of openness in this race is quite unprecedented, and has let the base make their views – both favorable and not – known in a way that they’ve never been able to do before.

With the Abramoff scandal putting a cloud over Washington, it’s good to know that the three candidates in this leadership election have decided to let a few rays of sunshine poke through and be willing to make this more than just another back-room Washington deal.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt has more observations on the race:

Will the collective effort matter? I am certain it already has, though the race is clearly up in the air. Information changes everything, and a previously closed system has been completely thrown open to public scrutiny.

Old media’s interest has been narrowly focused on Abramoff and his money, and while the bloggers have spent considerable time on the corruption issues, so too have they brought important policy debates into the middle of the leadership contests.

Earmarking, for example, is not going survive this process as it used to be practiced. The openness movement is gaining momentum across the board.

I personally think Shadegg is the best man for the job, but whoever wins this contest, it’s clear that the old ways of doing things are not going to fly with the base anymore. So long as the pressure to reform exists, politicians will do what’s in their best interest. No matter who gets elected, the same bloggers who are calling them on the issues should keep the pressure on to make sure that reform doesn’t just become a temporary buzzword.

Hewitt is also right – the blogger’s questions to these three candidates are far more probing than the questions you hear at the vast majority of press conferences these days…

Jay Cost has a good piece at RealClearPolitics on why Condoleezza Rice will not be running for President in 2008:

A long time ago, State was almost a prerequisite for the White House. Six of our first fifteen presidents – Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan – served as Secretary of State prior to election to the White House. What is more, there is a long list of presidential candidates who served in the same capacity, either before or (mostly) after their White House run – notably Henry Clay, John Calhoun, William Jennings Bryan, Charles Evans Hughes and Alexander Haig. That office remains one of the preeminent political positions in this country. Of this there is no doubt.

However, it has not been a step to the presidency in 150 years. Zero of our last twenty-seven presidents have been Secretary of State. And the number of secretaries-turned-candidates has also been few and far between. Since Buchanan, only one person, James G. Blaine, has received a presidential nomination after having served as Secretary of State. The rest, like Bryan and Hughes, sought the presidency and lost – and were subsequently honored by a victorious president of their party with the post. This seems counterintuitive. After all, this position has very frequently been filled by individuals of immense talent and intelligence. Why has the American public not made use of this resource? The answer has to do with matters of politics, rather than matters of governance.

Cost does an excellent job of explaining the political realities of being Secretary of State and why it’s not a suitable launching pad for the Presidency. Granted, Dr. Rice is in a better position than most Secretaries of State, but when she says she isn’t running, she isn’t running. A Presidential run requires months of prior planning, and Dr. Rice seems to have no interest in that sort of groundwork – she’s too busy doing her job.

As much as a Condi vs. Hillary match would be every pundit’s wet dream and tickles Dick Morris like a DC call-girl’s tongue, it just isn’t going to happen. Dr. Rice, much to her credit, seems to have no designs on higher political power and is concentrating on performing the duties of her office.

Then again, perhaps that explains why so many people would like her to run…

Rep. John Boehner has a piece on why House Republicans need to go on a ‘low pork diet’. It seems as though the GOP members of the House are finally getting the message that spending like Democrats doesn’t exactly endear them to their own base. Boehner observes:

We must start by addressing the growing practice of unauthorized earmarks–language in spending bills that directs federal dollars to private entities for projects that are not tied to an existing federal program or purpose. The public knows the practice better by a different name–pork-barreling. Unauthorized earmarks squander taxpayer dollars and lack transparency. They feed public cynicism. They’ve been a driving force in the ongoing growth of our already gargantuan federal government, and a major factor in government’s increasing detachment from the priorities of individual Americans. Earmarks have also fueled the growth of the lobbying industry. Entire firms have been built around the practice. As more entities circumvent the normal competitive process, confidence in the system erodes, encouraging others to take the same shortcuts.

The explosive growth of earmarks have caused spending to skyrocket in recent years – and getting rid of earmarks is an important first step in cutting back on the explosive growth of government spending. Congresscritters can easily throw in a few earmarks to keep the pork rolling in with relative impunity – and while projects like Porkbusters help expose this wasteful spending, it’s still rampant and is likely to be until the political culture in Washington changes.

And therein lies the problem: we have a political culture in Washington that has gone off the rails. Government has expanded dramatically in the post-World War II period. The power, size, scope, and intrusiveness of government grows year after year, and the freedoms of the American people keep receding in its wake. This trend is unsustainable – the strength of this country isn’t found in the size and scope of its government but in the ability of its people to translate their genius and effort into something that can expand and refine our economy and society.

In other words, if you’re a liberal, think of government as a massive honking SUV, like the results of a drunken tryst between a Ford Excursion and a Hummer H2. It does do some good, but it belches out smoke, gets 1 mile to the gallon (on a good day), requires it’s own gas tanker, pushes other cars off the road when it passes, and keeps getting bigger and more inefficient.

Ultimately, fighting pork is like putting that monster SUV on cleaner gas. Yes, it runs a little better, but that doesn’t necessarily shrink its size. Ultimately we’re still stuck with a behemoth that takes up every lane on the highway.

Congress can and should get serious about pork. Boehner and Shadegg are serious anti-pork crusaders – because they know that’s the sort of thing that will keep them in office, and there isn’t a greater power in the ‘verse that acts on Congress than electoral self-interest. Even Blunt is being dragged kicking and screaming into the world of fighting pork. The fact that House Republicans are talking reform says that they have some electoral interest in doing so, and that’s a good thing.

Boehner also pledges to reform the lobbyist system, which seems like a given with the Abramoff scandal in full swing. However, making it harder for diverse interest groups to petition Congress won’t necessarily help – the right to petition government is enshrined in our Constitution, and every time Congress tries to limit political speech, it just makes things worse. Remember how McCain-Feingold was supposed to clean up elections? Well, after millions of dollars were poured into MoveOn.org, Media Matters, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, etc., 2004 was one of the dirtiest and most vitriolic campaigns ever – at least when messages are coming from candidates they have some inclination towards keeping things clean. It’s easy to see lobbyists as convenient scapegoats, and lobbying reform will likely be a hot topic in Congress in the next few months.

But ultimately, if the voters stop caring about pork – and I’m looking at you, fellow Republicans – then the same old business as usual culture will quickly return. Washington has always been a fetid swamp, and the fact that we’ve built some nice marble façades over it doesn’t change what it is. It’s up to us to demand responsibility, accountability, and remind our Congresscritters that we have a limited government for a reason.

As P.J. O’Rourke wrote over a decade ago, Washington D.C. often resembles A Parliament of Whores – and unfortunately, we’re the whores. So long as we demand more and more government, that’s precisely what we’ll get. House Republicans need to get serious about reducing the size and intrusiveness of government – and so should we.

I join with the many other bloggers in supporting a reformist candidate for the GOP leadership in the Unites States House of Representatives. The Abramoff scandals have only highlighted the way in which the Republican leadership has lost touch with the principles of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and accountability to the people. In order to maintain a Republican majority in the House it is necessary for the GOP to make a strong commitment to those core principles.

I also heartily endorse the candidacy of John Shadegg for the position of Majority Leader. Congressman Shadegg represents the type of reformist candidate that is necessary to lead the GOP into a stronger position in 2006. I believe the editors of National Review have said it best:

There are three imperatives for the House GOP in the current environment that threatens its majority: Can it clean up its image? Can it reform practices that have at best made for sloppy governance and at worst contributed to corruption? And can it pursue policies that restore the trust of its political base and restore a purpose to an often direction-less majority? Shadegg is the best candidate on all counts.

The Republican Party faces a crisis of confidence between the leadership of the party and the base of the party. Shadegg is the leader who can best bridge this gap and return the Republican Party to the values of the Reagan Revolution that has brought it from a minority party to the majority party. If we abandon those principles the Republican Party will no longer be the majority – and it’s hard to argue that it should be.

Fiscal responsibility, limited government, and accountability aren’t just buzzwords, they are the bedrock foundations of the Republican Party. It’s time for a leadership that respects and propagates those values in the House.