Op-Ed
Braying Red
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Ready for the understatement of the year?
Last Tuesday night was a good Tuesday night. The American people wanted change, and they got it.
Even so, your humble columnist had one little misgiving — I wasn’t too sure what to think about the belle of the ball.
Then I heard her victory speech.
“The American people voted,” she said, my face covered in a curious grin, “for a new direction to restore civility and bipartisanship in Washington, D.C. Democrats promise to work together in a bipartisan way for all Americans.”
Whoa! Hold up, Haas — was this the woman I had been warned about? The Latte Liberal? The Iron Maiden of the Left?
“The American people voted,” she continued, “to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C. And the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.”
At this point, I could feel my throat begin to emit a soft, involuntary purr.
“The campaign is over,” the vision behind the microphone persisted, a halo slowly forming atop her auburn locks. “Democrats are ready to lead and prepared to govern. We will work with Republicans in Congress and the Administration in the spirit of” — it is here where I shot out of my chair to run a couple laps around the Milky Way — “partnership, not partisanship.”
One question, Cupid: doth thy arrow always sting so sweetly?
I, cherubs aside, could not believe my ears the night of November 7th. The very much fully-grown angel of the evening was, of course, none other than the über-liberal Nancy Pelosi, set to become the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House.
Why such effusive praise for, to use Bill O’Reilly’s description, “a committed secular progressive who embraces San Francisco values?”
First, Pelosi’s rhetoric since the election indicates that she knows exactly why her party won last week, and second, she demonstrated then and continues to demonstrate now that she will step up to the plate and lead with that knowledge in mind.
Rather than devoting the majority of her time after Tuesday’s jubilation to criticizing President Bush or, for lack of a better word, “neener-neenering” congressional Repub-licans, the much-reviled California congresswoman has taken great pains to play the part of — dare I say it? — a uniter, not a divider.
It is not hard to see why.
When Americans went to the polls on Election Day, they injected new life into what had long been considered a dying breed: the conservative Democrat.
No one on the Hill recognizes the implications of this development more than Nancy Pelosi — though, to be sure, her counterpart in the other half of the legislative branch is quickly catching on.
It was, after all, the victory of former Reagan Navy Secretary Jim Webb over incumbent George Allen in Virginia that gave Nevada’s Harry Reid the magic number he needed to become the new Senate Majority Leader.
The triumphs of pro-lifer Bob Casey in Pennsylvania and Second Amendment supporter Jon Tester in Montana — not to mention the success and cooperation of hawkish “Independent-Democrat” Joe Lieberman in the Nutmeg State — didn’t hurt any, either.
Reid echoed Pelosi a week ago today when Allen’s concession speech in the Old Dominion made the prospect of a new Democratic majority in the Senate a sure thing.
“It’s time for bipartisanship, it’s time for open government, transparency, and it’s a time for results,” the Nevada native said.
“They’ve set a very bad example in not working with us,” he added, referring to colleagues in the GOP who have largely dominated Congress for the past twelve years. “We’re not following that example.”
The new focus on bipartisanship is more than a nice gesture — it reflects the political reality of the incoming 110th Congress.
Not that long ago, partisan gerrymandering by Republican-controlled state legislatures and primary challenges from party purists threatened to drive the conservative Democrats who once dominated American politics to extinction. In 2004, Texans said goodbye to four such Democrats as a result of the former; Ned Lamont hoped his campaign in Connecticut this election cycle would go down in history as a successful example of the latter.
Earlier this month, however, Americans proved that they would have none of it. Voters in Texas’ 22nd congressional district — once home to Tom DeLay, the mastermind behind the redistricting plan that made the Lone Star State a lot redder two years ago — filled the one-time Republican House Majority Leader’s seat with one of the very four Democrats he had sent packing. Meanwhile, a coalition of Democrats, Republicans and Independents in blue-state Connecticut joined together to send the maverick figure of the three-term Senator Lieberman back to Washington for another six years with an “I” after his name.
And there is definitely no lack of new faces. In addition to the soon-to-be Senator Casey of Keystone State fame, Democrats for Life of America added six new representatives to their list of congressional allies, most notable among them former NFL quarterback Heath Shuler in North Carolina — who, like Casey, successfully defeated a Republican incumbent by waging a campaign that largely focused on his conservative bona fides.
With a twist. Shuler’s description of his anti-abortion stance in particular reveals where he and likeminded Democrats in the House and the Senate will seek to find common ground with Pelosi and Reid over the next two years.
“I am a pro-life Democrat,” Shuler writes on his campaign website, his rhetoric similar to pro-life rhetoric everywhere, “and I believe that all life is sacred.”
But then he tacks on something more: “I also believe that a commitment to life extends beyond the womb and means ensuring that all people have adequate health care, receive a strong education, and be given proper care in their later years.”
Candidates like Shuler — who promise, for example, to protect both unborn life and American jobs — give the Democratic Party hope for political progress in states across the South and in America’s Heartland.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid know this. They have both talked the talk. From here on out, the question is whether they can walk the walk — and maintain the grand coalition on which the future of their party rests.
I dare say that more than one banana peel will likely make its way onto the road ahead.
Mark Coombs is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at mpc39@cornell.edu. If You Can Keep It appears Thursdays.