Fred Barnes: Just Saying No

Weekly Standard

The Democratic mantra.
By Fred Barnes

DAVID BRODER, THE POLITICAL columnist for the Washington Post, wrote last week that President Bush "has become the victim of overreach." Former vice president Al Gore has said Bush and congressional Republicans have a different problem, their "lust for power." Both are wrong. Bush's biggest problem--indeed the striking feature of his second term--is the Democrats' lust for obstruction.

They have answered Bush's plans for Social Security reform, his judicial nominations, and even his choice of John Bolton to become United Nations ambassador with lockstep opposition. "There is still potential for the ice to break," a White House official says. And President Bush tried at his press conference last week to peel off Democrats or at least force party leaders to negotiate on Social Security. He made a strong case for creating personal investment accounts financed by payroll taxes. But Democrats weren't persuaded. The response of Democratic congressional leaders was a reflexive "no."

After the defeat last fall of Tom Daschle, the obstructionist Senate minority leader, Democrats briefly feared blanket opposition to Bush's initiatives might produce a political backlash. That fear is now gone. Rather than feel any pressure to cooperate with the White House, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are the ones exerting pressure. They put the squeeze on waverers to hold the line against Bush.

The lone House Democrat to defect on Social Security, Alan Boyd of Florida, has been targeted by Democratic interest groups. The left-wing group MoveOn.org has run ads zinging him. Under pressure from Democratic leaders, a black House member backed away from cosponsoring a Social Security reform bill with a Republican. Last week, minority leader Nancy Pelosi warned five House Democrats not to attend a bipartisan session on Social Security with AARP, the liberal seniors' lobby. Only two, Jim Cooper of Tennessee and Ed Case of Hawaii, ended up going.

Moderate Democrats, however, are beginning to chafe under the pressure. On second-tier bills, many have defected: Seventy-three House Democrats voted to make it more difficult to declare personal bankruptcy. Liberal Democrats then accused them of selling out to special interests, reported Erin Billings in Roll Call. Pelosi criticized Democrats who had petitioned House speaker Denny Hastert to bring the bankruptcy bill to the floor for a vote.

The main reason Democrats have overcome their skittishness about obstructionism is money. Their base now includes many wealthy sympathizers and well-heeled interest groups willing to donate lavishly, but only if Democrats take a hard line against the president. Last winter, when Condoleezza Rice's nomination as secretary of state came before the Senate, Rice was attacked by Democratic senator Barbara Boxer of California for allegedly letting her ambition get in the way of her truthfulness. Just reelected, she was bombarded with flowers from appreciative supporters.

The White House suspected after Bush's reelection that Democrats would obstruct on so-called core issues--Social Security, judges, and others like tax reform that haven't reached Congress yet. "We had indications last fall that Democrats calculated . . . that there's no upside in working with the president, particularly because of the base," a Bush aide says. Despite losing badly in last year's election, the Democratic base is energized, its morale is high, and its fervor for opposing Bush is undiminished.

The White House and congressional Republicans are belatedly compensating for the intensity of Democratic obstruction. The president's prime time press conference, a rare event, was designed chiefly to sell his Social Security program and show his willingness to consider ideas from Democrats. But the only idea offered by Democrats was that he abandon his plans to reform Social Security altogether.

On the Democrats' filibustering of judicial nominations, Republicans had been losing the argument until Vice President Dick Cheney intervened in late April. He insisted that Democrats, not Republicans, were shattering Senate tradition by routinely using the filibuster to block judges. By barring such filibustering, he argued, Republicans would actually be preserving a Senate precedent. Now Senate Republicans are prepared to try to limit the filibuster--the "nuclear option"--so 41 senators would not be able to stop an up-or-down vote on judges.

This would call the Democrats' bluff. They had vowed to halt the work of the Senate if Republicans succeed in banning judicial filibusters. But they've hastily retreated from that position, figuring they, not Republicans, would be blamed for blocking Senate business.

In the short run, obstructionism works. Bush has been stymied on Social Security. The question is whether there will be retribution in the 2006 midterm election. Democrats seem unworried. Sen. Teddy Kennedy claims Democrats still represent "majority opinion" in America. Of course, that's what Daschle thought before he was defeated last year.