"Has the Election Pushed the Democratic Party to the Right?

I concluded my last commentary with, “Next time - Has the election of so called Democratic conservatives pushed the Democratic Party to the right? I respond with a resounding, NO!

I raise that question because much of the media has focused on the Democratic candidates who won in States and Districts that had in the past been heavily Republican and dubbed them “conservatives” who could not be counted on to carry out the Democratic progressive agenda.

This analysis is in my opinion misplaced because it ignores both what the term conservative means in common parlance and what the so-called Democratic conservatives believe in. (I should add that in my view the term conservative as used today is misplaced, since today’s so called conservatives want to conserve little and have a radical agenda for change.) But even in today’s context conservatives can be defined by their position on a number of crucial issues, as follows:

1.) the economic ones
2.) environmental ones
2.) the social ones
3.) the fiscal ones
4.) the foreign policy ones
5.) the racial ones

Using these broad categories as a way for evaluating the new Democratic members of Congress, let us look at two who have been dubbed “conservative” and a potential problem for the Democratic leadership in the Congress.

For example Senator elect Casey of Pennsylvania has been referred to as one of the new breed of conservative Democrat on the basis that he favors an overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Even in this area, however, he supports the morning after pill, and on abortion he favors exceptions to save the life of the mother and in case of rape & incest. In addition he favors state funding of contraception.

On Social Security he opposes Social Security privatization. On Medicare he believes that the Medicare Part D program is fundamentally flawed. He wants to fill the "doughnut hole" of missing Medicare Rx costs and wants to Expand Health Care Coverage. On the minimum wage he has stated, “A Minimum Wage Increase is Long Overdue.” On taxes he has stated, [we should] repeal the tax cut for people making over $200,000 a year.

On the environment he has stated that a clean environment should be a top priority and that Congress must help curb environmental pollution. Bob Casey supports increased funding for Brownfield clean up and reinstatement of the polluter-pays principle in the Superfund program so that polluters pay to clean up their own pollution. He opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Even on Social issues where he is most out of step with the majority of Democrats, particularly on abortion, he opposes a constitutional ban on gay marriage; approves of civil unions so as to allow gay couples to adopt & share employment benefits, favors increased penalties for “Sexual Orientation Hate Crimes” and is committed to Affirmative Action and a diverse workforce.

On fiscal policy he urges fiscal discipline to lower interest rates. He feels that budget deficits choke investment and drives business to ruin.

On Iraq policy he is more hardline than most Democrats by opposing any deadline or timeline for pulling our troops out, but he wants to ask tough questions about colossal intelligence failure.

On the racial issues he is committed to Affirmative Action and a diverse workforce, though he takes a tough stance on illegal immigration and on gun control.

The bottom line is that while he would not stand shoulder to shoulder on all issues dear to the liberal wing of the Democratic party he is hardly someone who would undermine the Democratic majority.
But is he an exception from other so called conservative Democrats elected in this election. Let us look at Senator elect Webb of Virginia who was written off as being a “Blue Dog Democrat” as soon as he was elected and before. The emphasis was that he was a Republican who served 4 years in the Reagan Administration first as Assistant Secretary of Defense, then as Secretary of the Navy. Nevertheless, shortly after his election he said,” the most important -- and unfortunately the least debated -- issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country.''

On Iraq he feels so strongly that at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress, Webb ''tried to avoid President Bush,'' refusing to pass through the reception line or have his picture taken with the President. When Bush asked Webb, whose son is a Marine in Iraq, ''How's your boy?'' Webb replied, ''I'd like to get them out of Iraq.'' Bush said, ''That's not what I asked you. How's your boy?'' Webb replied, ''That's between me and my boy.''

Webb told the Washington Post: ''I'm not particularly interested in having a picture of me and George W. Bush on my wall”. No offense to the institution of the presidency, and I'm certainly looking forward to working with him and his administration.

It is impossible to review in one analysis where all the so called conservatives in the new Democratic Congress stand but on the basis of these two, who have been much maligned as not being on board with the Democratic agenda, I would say that Democrats are united as never before on most major issues, and that the obstacles to progress lies not in division within the Democratic Party, and certainly not between the newly elected Democrats and the old stalwarts, but rather by the fact that Republicans still have enough votes in the Senate to block action, and if that is not enough there lurks the Presidential veto.

These, however, are the obstacles to progress and not that newly elected Democrats shift the party to the Right.