Sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference between the Democrats’ nomination struggles and a Jay Leno routine, but occasionally little gems pop out that reflect a revealing light on the entertaining process. Here are one or two.
Terry McAuliffe Says A True Thing
This happens so infrequently that it’s worth a look. Responding to the rising concern that the nomination struggle has become so bitter and divisive that the party will have difficulty coming together, McAuliffe, the DNC chairman, responded (all subsequent quotes from this same source):
In an interview, Mr. McAuliffe predicted the party would rally around the winner and the candidate would wind up with the kind of big ideas needed to make a case against Mr. Bush.
“Listen, we will be unified,” he said. “All the candidates are going to come together. There is a visceral dislike of George Bush and it’s going to bring these guys together.”
I think that’s exactly right. The main glue holding the Democratic party together, if it is together, at least as of now, is “a visceral dislike of George Bush.” That may well be enough to unite them, but it is far from clear that it will be enough to defeat Bush.
McAuliffe also said:
I am telling you, with the new calendar we are going to have an early nominee. We could not have a food fight going through the spring of 2004.
At least he knows a food fight when he sees one.
Wesley Clark Has A Half-Baked (Or Perhaps Only Rare) Idea
Another concern voiced increasingly by worried Democrats is that the primary season has been “marked more by daily bickering than sweeping themes or compelling new ideas on where to take the country.” Bob Kerrey, former Nebraska senator who ran for a while in 1992, worries that “[t]he nastiness of this campaign makes it difficult to go to an overarching message.” And Eli Segal, former campaign chairman for Bill Clinton who is now playing that role for Wesley Clark, says “[i]t’s very hard to develop substantive ideas to distinguish yourself in the crowd with the rush of early primaries and all these debates.”
This hunger for a “big idea” is almost palpable, and apparently General Clark is rushing to satisfy it. Matthew Bennett, General Clark’s communications director, told a New York Times reporter,
Wait one week and we’ll have a big idea coming out. I can’t give it out yet, but it’s not quite cooked.
“It’s very hard to develop substantive ideas to distinguish yourself in the crowd with the rush of early primaries and all these debates,” Mr. Segal said. “It’s made for commonality of views.”
So, they have debates to show how much they have in common. Say what?
General Clark’s communications director, Matthew Bennett, called back later to say that the general would soon break the ice. “Wait one week and we’ll have a big idea coming out,” Mr. Bennett said. “I can’t give it out yet, but it’s not quite cooked.”
He’s been in the race how many months? He’s been alive how many decades? And we still have to wait for “a big idea coming out”?
These are unvarnished admissions of a philosophical wasteland, no?
Well, they want to be in power, but so far the slogan “Democrats for Power!” hasn’t quite been successful in early demographic tests.