The '90's are over
Over at Crosscut, Austin Jenkins sizes up the performance of Democrats in the Legislature as the sessions nears its end. It's a decent round-up anlaysis piece, if rather conventional (which to be fair reflects the thinking of leadership:)
It's fine to be smart, but there is no magical "centrist" population. Why are we still playing this silly game where the "middle," as defined by the media or political spin masters, is an equal point between extremes? That's how the whole zeitgeist got shifted so far to the right in the first place. It's a sucker's game, 'cause the BIAW, EFFWA and the GOP are going to attack our candidates no matter what, often with outright lies. That's what they do.
Triangulation, as the Clintons called it, is dead as a political strategy. That's not an argument for extremism, it's an argument for pursuing legislation that will be in the best interest of the ordinary citizens of Washington state. Like, for example, modest consumer protections that would help people who buy defective houses. Leaky plumbing doesn't have a political identity.
None of this is to disparage the very good legislation that is coming out of the session, particularly when it comes to education and health care. It's a comment on how we look at politics. Sometimes, you need to think outside the bun.
Dunshee says Chopp and other Democratic leaders are ever mindful of what happened in the early 1990s. That's when Democrats rose to power and enacted a sweeping agenda that included tax hikes. Voters responded by sending Democrats into oblivion in the 1994 election. (It didn't help that 1994 was a Republican year nationally.) Dunshee calls that bloodletting the "'94 Debacle." He says vulnerable Democrats back then were forced to take "god-awful" votes on the floor.Well, yeah. But who in their right mind thinks 2008 is going to even remotely resemble 1994? If anything it could turn into a complete disaster for the GOP, not us.
Not this time around. Divisive issues like gun control and whether Washington should have an income tax are topics-non-grata. Case in point: Look at what happened to Rep. Jim McIntyre, D-Seattle, a vocal supporter of an income tax. Before the session, McIntyre was stripped of his chairmanship of the House Finance Committee. A caucus spokesman maintains that was part of a larger committee reorganization.
It's fine to be smart, but there is no magical "centrist" population. Why are we still playing this silly game where the "middle," as defined by the media or political spin masters, is an equal point between extremes? That's how the whole zeitgeist got shifted so far to the right in the first place. It's a sucker's game, 'cause the BIAW, EFFWA and the GOP are going to attack our candidates no matter what, often with outright lies. That's what they do.
Triangulation, as the Clintons called it, is dead as a political strategy. That's not an argument for extremism, it's an argument for pursuing legislation that will be in the best interest of the ordinary citizens of Washington state. Like, for example, modest consumer protections that would help people who buy defective houses. Leaky plumbing doesn't have a political identity.
None of this is to disparage the very good legislation that is coming out of the session, particularly when it comes to education and health care. It's a comment on how we look at politics. Sometimes, you need to think outside the bun.
