A Tale Of Two Exits

R.I.P. Democratic Leadership Council. Bye-bye Senator Jim Webb (D-VA). Although both exits are strong indications that the left has finally gotten complete control of the Democratic Party, the stories are somewhat different. The DLC had many manifestations, but was largely considered to be a moderate Democratic group that was not hostile to business.

Webb ran as a conservative Democrat with strong pro-national defense credentials and a major disdain for the Democratic left and the McGovernites. He opposed the Iraq War, but not because he could be described as a peacenik. Webb was not particularly unfriendly toward the DLC, but he despised its major player, Bill Clinton. He quit his position as Reagan's Secretary of the Navy because of his opposition to defense budget cuts, and endorsed Republicans George W. Bush for President and George Allen for Governor of Virginia (the same man he defeated in his bid for Senator). As Virginia temporarily moved toward the blue side of the spectrum, Webb ran as if Virginia were bright crimson.

During his Senatorial run, Webb advocated cutting capital gains taxes, strongly supported Second Amendment rights, and was willing to support the nomination of conservative judges. But once elected, and unlike the DLC which wavered only slightly on its middle-of-the-road positions, Webb made a sharp left turn and ended up with one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate. Suddenly and seemingly incomprehensibly Webb became bosom buddies with Bill Clinton and even stranger, with John Kerry. Webb had refused for at least two decades to shake hands with Kerry, whom he considered a traitor for his bashing of the American military during the Vietnam War.

We may never know for sure what caused Webb to veer to the left. Perhaps opportunism, or expediency, or even a genuine change of heart toward the role of government. Whatever the reasons, it was a dramatic shift from being to the right of the DLC to being to the left of it. But Virginia is poised to make that move back into the red state zone, and Webb would have had a much more difficult time being reelected, particularly if his rival would have been the man he defeated previously. Still, that alone didn't cause his resignation. There are those who say it was simply that he didn't like the snail's-pace and formality of the Senate. Or possibly that he didn't have the political will for another battle against the trends. Or even that he simply couldn't figure out how to explain his dramatic shift from right to left.

But I would suggest that some, and perhaps all of those surmises are at least partially correct. Yet Webb made one major miscalculation. He supported Obamacare, and that could have been a death sentence (pun intended) in Virginia which is in the forefront of the battle to repeal the Health Care Act or gut it in court. So let me wander off into a couple of fantasies about why the funeral orations for the DLC and Senator Webb are occurring at the same time.

The DLC was on its face largely moderate. But underneath, it was about identifying hot-button issues on which Democrats had previously demonstrated serious weaknesses unpopular with the public. Issues such as national defense, crime and free enterprise. The DLC worked very hard to convince Americans that Democrats could and would take moderate and popular stands on those issues. Their problem was that after a brief ascendancy in the 1990s, the DLC was overwhelmed by the Pelosi-Reed left. That coalition worked long and hard to undo the Clinton triangulation and the public relations facade of the DLC.

By the middle of Bush's presidency, with an unpopular two-front war in progress, and Bush Derangement Syndrome at its height, the Democratic Party gained from its direct opposition to Bush, where the DLC had advocated cooperation. And then came the crash. Suddenly the left could plausibly (if inaccurately) blame Republicans and free enterprise for the crash. That allowed Pelosi and Reed to push the party even farther to the left with massive government programs, supported by Barack Obama, on the promise of using socialist schemes (which they never called "socialist") to "solve the crisis" and "fundamentally transform America." Too many Americans panicked, saw change as a good thing in and of itself, and voted for a leftist Democratic President and Congress.

In 2010, America had come to its senses, recognized what the Democrats were really up to, and Republicans re-took the House of Representatives by a substantial margin and got close to taking the Senate in a year when the challenged Democratic seats were largely in solidly blue states. That left Webb with a Party that was inarguably far left, particularly hammered home when the remaining House Democrats chose Nancy Pelosi as their majority leader. It also left the DLC with practically no base at all in a Party that could only hold the left and lost in almost every moderate, centrist or conservative area of any importance.

But it also left both the DLC and Webb with the underlying problem that all good socialists and John McCain disdain--money. Despite their obvious and sometimes vast differences, and with the political and social issues determining the existence of both politicians and political movements, the two suffered from an inability to raise real money and set up war chests large enough to conduct winning activities. Neither Webb nor the DLC remain fiscally viable, and are therefore not politically viable.

Only by re-reinventing himself could Webb stand a chance of getting his Party's nomination. But Virginians are fans of the dictum "burn me once, shame on you; burn me twice, shame on me." How could he possibly raise money for another run when he already stiffed the people who believed him the first time around?

The DLC did not share that problem, but it did share the problem of not being able to raise money from the remaining ruling Democrats who have been almost totally radicalized. Taking the middle ground doesn't work for Democrats anymore. Many Blue Dog Democrats were defeated in the last election. The remaining Blue Dogs have either been isolated or co-opted. Of the thirteen remaining Blue Dogs who voted against Obamacare, only three voted to repeal it. For the time being, the Democratic Party is a leftist political machine that retains only its most radical members from its glory days from 2006 through this past election.

The public has figured that out, and will spend its money supporting candidates who take a genuine stand and stick to it. This has created an informal coalition of Republicans and Independents who will monetarily support the moderate to conservative candidates, while Democratic money will go only to avowed liberals and radicals. And that is the exit music for the DLC and Jim Webb.