Iraq dilemma stymies Democrats

Alliance with faith-based voters?
“Can we find common ground with faith-based voters around the issue of violence in the media?” Hope asked DNC pollster Cornell Belcher. “Is that an issue that we should be looking at more seriously?”

Hope said she wanted the Democratic Party to create a task force on “violence and sexual immorality which has permeated our entertainment industry.”

“The party needs to talk about a return to morality in the media,” she said. “This is clearly an area of concern where we can find common ground with Southern voters, with Christian voters, with Jewish voters, with women voters.”

Dean voiced optimism at the DNC gathering about the demographic trends that he sees as assuring Democratic dominance in the decades ahead.

Looking at the DNC executive committee with its mix of blacks, whites, Latinos, women and gays, Dean said, “The future of this country is the people in this room. In 2050, America is going to look like this. There will be no majority. In California right now there is no such thing as a majority, there are some big minorities: Anglos, Asia-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans.”

To bolster support for the party from Latinos, blacks, and women, Dean announced Saturday what he called “an enormous outreach project” to woo such voters. “These are in many ways the pillars of the Democratic Party,” Dean said.

Although he said “the American people don’t know where we stand on a lot of issues, because we have not campaigned in 50 states,” Dean added that “people want us to fight and we are here to fight.”

Winning on Social Security
Unlike Iraq — the issue on which leading Democrats are not fighting Bush’s policy — they are fighting him on Social Security and, for now, they seem to be winning, by blocking his effort to persuade Congress to enact private retirement accounts.

“The Democrats have managed to change the playing field over the past six months by being unified on Social Security, and by saying that the Democratic Party is about government assuring a decent standard of life for all Americans,” said James Roosevelt, a DNC member from Cambridge, Mass. and also a grandson of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Democratic leaders are confident about next year’s elections. If the Democrats win a few Senate races and recapture the governorships of some of the competitive states such as New York, Ohio, California, Colorado, and Florida, some pundits will conclude the Democrats have revived.

Dean's DNC can play an important role in congressional races by paying for grass-roots organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts. The DNC can also use independent expenditures, made without a candidate’s cooperation or consent, to pay for ads attacking his Republican opponent.

According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, as of the end of April, the DNC had raised nearly $21 million, less than half the amount raised by the Republican National Committee.

Lots of options for donors
Under the rules set by the McCain-Feingold law, as interpreted by the Federal Election Commission, donors have a range of vehicles for investing their political contributions.

A donor could give the maximum of $26,700 to the DNC for the 2005-2006 election cycle, then chip in another $26,700 to the the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee which recruits and funds Senate candidates.

The Democratic-allied groups, such as American Coming Together and the Media Fund, financed by mega-donors such as George Soros and labor unions, are likely to play an important role in the 2006 and 2008 elections unless Congress enacts a law to crack down on them. A donor can give an unlimited amount to such groups.

As the pace of the 2006 campaign quickens, the focus of the news media and the party faithful will be less on Dean, and more on Senate candidates such as Bob Casey in Pennsylvania and gubernatorial candidates such as Phil Angelides or Steve Westly in California.

Then, the morning after the 2006 elections the attention will immediately pivot to the 2008 presidential contest.

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