Just as Republicans split 40 years ago, between those who would accomodate the Democratic majority and those who rejected it, so Democrats are now splitting in a similar way.
On the one side we have accomodationists, or "Clintonistas." On the other we have the Netroots, who identify first with DNC chair Howard Dean but have gone beyond him.
Conventional analysts will call this split a sign of weakness. History shows it to be a sign of strength.
Unlike the 1966 Republican split this one is not ideological. In fact many "movement" Democrats, like Ohio candidate Paul Hackett, are far more conservative (in their political opinions) to "establishment" Democrats (like Nancy Pelosi, almost Hackett’s Minority Leader).
The split is over tactics. The "movement" wing rejects both accomodation with Republicans (Joe Lieberman) and with big business "Astroturf" campaigns. The accomodationists claim the movement can’t win, that it’s extreme, that it’s impractical.
Into this latter category should go the names of Mike McCurry and Andrew Young.
- McCurry, who was press secretary to Bill Clinton, is in trouble for joining the Bell "Astroturf" campaign against network neutrality.
- Young, who was UN ambassador for Jimmy Carter and stood next to Martin Luther King Jr. the night he was shot, is in trouble for a joining a Wal-Mart "Astroturf" campaign.
What does this mean?
I think it means Democrats are preparing a new Thesis.
One of the first steps in this is a process of "purification," in which symbols of the old Anti-Thesis are swept away. It’s a multi-cycle process, which begins a few years before power is taken, and ends with the full triumph of the new Thesis.
Think of Reaganism. It emerged with Goldwater, as early as 1962, it elected Nixon in 1968 (although he was the Vice President of Eisenhower, the Anti-Thesis to FDR) and by the Reagan landslide of 1980 it held the whole party.
This has happened repeatedly throughout American history. It happened in the 1960s to Nelson Rockefeller. It happened in the 1930s to Al Smith.
This process, it should be noted, usually takes place underneath a demand for "unity." Those under attack use the word to try to fend off challengers. Those who are attacking acknowledge that purity of motive is a first essential step toward unifying the public.
The key to the 1966 election was not ideology, but "new faces." The candidates who triumphed were new to politics, they were true challengers. Except for Reagan, they were fairly moderate (they would be liberal by today’s standards). The movement-accomodationist split was under the radar.
That is what we should be looking for this year, real traction and real victory by challengers whose claim is purity. They may drag some of the old guard along with them (some may turn out to be old guarad themselves), but by next year it should be quite clear that the old guard is old.
This does not mean we won’t see an Anti-Thesis candidate in 2008, and a President elected by virtue of their bridging this divide within their own party. Nixon ran that way. FDR ran that way. So did Abraham Lincoln.
But the Thesis, in the end, will dominate. The Democratic equivalent of Reaganism will triumph. And today’s Old Guard will be left in the dust.
