The Democrats: Stuck in the Spin Cycle

There is a great editorial cartoon in today's NYT entitled "Spin the Democrat", which perfectly captures the dilemma facing the Democatic party today. The cartoon shows a Democratic candidate pinned to a spin wheel that includes the following words and phrases: soft on terror, out of touch, aiding the enemy, elitist, weak, flip flopper, loony left, pre-911 mind-set, retreat and defeat and girlie man. The punchline of the cartoon has this neutered, anxious Democrat asking, "Why bother defining myself...when the Republicans have done such a thorough job already?"

In a similar vein, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the man behind the liberal blog Daily Kos, argues in today's NYT Magazine that the Democrats are in desperate need of savvier consultants, noting that:

To get their message out, the Republicans created this entire conservative noise machine. They have Fox News and The Washington Times and the 700 Club and just about the entire talk-radio dial. They have this incredible ability to promote whatever the big issue of the day is. There is no partisan liberal media that is working in concert with the Democratic Party in order to sell whatever the party is selling.

Finally, on the most recent episode of Real Time, Bill Maher's fantastic new show on HBO, Maher grilled Russ Feingold, the Senator from Wisconsin and a leading Democratic presidential candidate, on why the Democrats can't get their key policy messages across to the American public. Feingold's response was that the Democrats must first demonstrate to the electorate that they can stand up to the Republicans on Iraq and the "war on terror" and make it clear that they won't be intimidated by the White House.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the current state of the Democratic party: weak, defensive, neurotic, headless, self-pitying and ultimately futile. And the most shocking part of all is that this comes at a time when the President's approval rating is at its lowest level since taking office, Rove et al are under investigation or indictment for criminal activity, Cheney is shooting old men in the face and Bush continues to trumpet the liberation of Iraq as his crowning achievement while the country disintegrates into civil war and is the prime breeding ground for global terrorists today. Wow, imagine what the Dems would do if things were more or less on even keel down there in D.C.

So, what of the Democrats? My suggestion is that they take a page from the playbook of Inter Milan, the great Italian football team. The key to winning is to appear to be playing defence while, in fact, playing offence. But, the first course of action, requires a substitution. Let's get Nancy Pelosi off the field and bring in some fresh legs. How about bringing back Carville from South America and feeding the ball up the wings to Obama and Warner. At least, let's try to play for a tie.