Democrats in disarray over national defense...

[Arrian]

Dems: no plan, or many different ones.
Republicans: a bad plan.

Lovely, eh?

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

rufus is incorrect however.

Southern Dems are historically not isolationist, and during WW2 were interventionist. Some of the confusion is created by conflating isolationist vs interventionist with multilateralist vs unilateralist. Theyre not the same axis, and that matters to dem views of foreign policy. Also the reduction to geographic groupings is simplistic. The hawk vs dove division in the Dem party has split NORTHERN democrats since the Viet Nam war. I grew up in New York City, and can vouch that those issues split New York City democrats. In New York they continue divisions on the left that go back to the 1948 election, Truman vs Henry Wallace.

But in fact I must also disagree with Dan. I dont see disarray. The democrats are a coalition, and as Rufus rightfully says, its domestic issues, esp socioeconomic issues that unite them. The Dems are quite capable of containing a wide variety of positions on foreign policy. Right now, for all the talk of disarray, id rather be a dem running for the House than a republican.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
Dems: no plan, or many different ones.
Republicans: a bad plan.

Lovely, eh?

-Arrian

theyve fooled you then. Actually the White House plan now is different than the WH plan 2003 to early 2004. They just dont admit it when theyve changed (and even in Bushes last speech hes underplayed how much the admin has changed)

[Arrian]

I wasn't asserting that the White House plan had remained consistent. Goodness, no! They've been flip-flopping like champs. I was just taking a shot at the quality (or lack thereof) of their plan(s) so far...

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
I wasn't asserting that the White House plan had remained consistent. Goodness, no! They've been flip-flopping like champs. I was just taking a shot at the quality (or lack thereof) of their plan(s) so far...

-Arrian

Id say their current plan on Iraq is about as good as any ive seen, and is not really different from anything currently advocated by Biden, Clinton, Holbrooke, etc (IE not just Lieberman) which is why the Dems have been focusing on mistakes the admin made a couple of years ago. Perhaps you were referring to a different issue than Iraq?

[Arrian]

I was talking about past performance, yeah. It does sound like improvements have been made lately. Good. But that doesn't change their general course of performance (incompetance).

-Arrian

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
rufus is incorrect however.

Southern Dems are historically not isolationist, and during WW2 were interventionist. Some of the confusion is created by conflating isolationist vs interventionist with multilateralist vs unilateralist.

During WWII, nearly everyone was interventionist -- we were attacked, for God's sake. But in the run-up to the war, Southern Dems were isolationist, seeing not just the war but Europe and Asia themselves as none of our concern.

After WWII, you're right to note that multilateralist vs. unilateralist emerges as a more useful distinction, though.

Still, some isolationist strain remains. Foreign aid is a good example. Even in the case of unilateral aid, Northern Dems tended to be for it, Southern dems very much against it.

The thing I don't understand, really, is why ideological realignment was only a one-way thing: the Dems managed to lose their Southern wind without grabbing the Northeastern GOP. Olympia Snow, Lincoln Chaffee, Christine Todd Whitman, Arlen Specter, even Rudy Giuliani are politically much closer to Clinton and Gore than they are to anyone who has led their own party in the past 25 years.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
If the Dems had a larger coherent message, they could use it to paper over the differences they have on individual policies. This is the lesson the GOP learned ages ago, which is why it's now the majority party.

But the Dems don't have an overall message. They only have a blizzard of self-contradictory position papers. And when your party position is the sum of the positions of its members, and the members are all over the map, that's not a Big Tent, it's chaos. Put another way, when you stand for pretty near everything...you stand for nothing. That's the problem.

Absolutely true. The Republican party also has some serious splits (especially as it has morphed into the dominant party), but it manages those splits much better. But as the larger party the Republicans are beginning to feel the strains more acutely than before. In particular old economic conservatives are appalled by the behavior of both the executive branch and congress.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly

The thing I don't understand, really, is why ideological realignment was only a one-way thing: the Dems managed to lose their Southern wind without grabbing the Northeastern GOP. Olympia Snow, Lincoln Chaffee, Christine Todd Whitman, Arlen Specter, even Rudy Giuliani are politically much closer to Clinton and Gore than they are to anyone who has led their own party in the past 25 years.

That is simply good government rearing its head despite the efforts of the two party system to quash it. The people you mention are simply centrists who are using the unpopular party in their region to offer a choice to their constituents.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Sikander


That is simply good government rearing its head despite the efforts of the two party system to quash it. The people you mention are simply centrists who are using the unpopular party in their region to offer a choice to their constituents.

I don't think that's true. Lincoln Chafee's politics are indistinguishable from those of most Rhode Island Dems. Arlen Specter's opponents in general elections tend to be Dems as moderate as he is (and Pennsylania Dems do tend to be moderate, while the Pensylvania GOP is quite conservative). I don't know the other states as well I think there are very few places left in the US (NY, CA, MA, VT) where the GOP is the moderate alternative to the liberal Dems; the dems haev moved to the center in most other places, while the GOP has shifted right -- but conservative Dems have realigned in the South, while moderate Republicans have not realigned in the Northeast.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DanS
I do think Clinton was particularly poor in the area -- he roped in a Republican to be his SecDef for lack of anybody better in the party -- so maybe something changed.

Clinton attempted realized he only narrowly won the 1992 election so he attempted to reach out to Republicans by putting Republicans into several key spots. Naturally, the dullards on talk radio claimed it was because there were no Democrats worthy of those jobs but most people dismiss those silly claims as the garbage they are.

Wouldn't it have been so much better if Bush, after losing the popular vote in 2000, had decided to attempt to reconcil the nation the way Clinton had instead of simply running the nation into the ground with partisan vitriole?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


I don't think that's true. Lincoln Chafee's politics are indistinguishable from those of most Rhode Island Dems. Arlen Specter's opponents in general elections tend to be Dems as moderate as he is (and Pennsylania Dems do tend to be moderate, while the Pensylvania GOP is quite conservative). I don't know the other states as well I think there are very few places left in the US (NY, CA, MA, VT) where the GOP is the moderate alternative to the liberal Dems; the dems haev moved to the center in most other places, while the GOP has shifted right -- but conservative Dems have realigned in the South, while moderate Republicans have not realigned in the Northeast.

Well some of this may depend on one's definition of moderate. I would say that in my lifetime the northeastern Republicans did realign for the most part, they were and are pretty scarce since the Nixon administration. More recently however an even bigger shift has happened in the south where conservative Dems have gone over to the Republican party.

[Patroklos]

Wouldn't it have been so much better

No