Catastrophe - Dick Morris [32]
But Obama has a big weakness—the coming elections of 2010. Then, as happens every two years, the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate will be up for reelection. That will be our chance to take back our country and rescue it from socialism.
The Democrats play a game with us. They run moderate candidates in swing districts and states. These candidates preach the virtues of a balanced budget, a strong military, and tough protections against terrorism. Some are even pro-life or side with the Right on cultural issues. Their moderation attracts swing voters, and they frequently defeat their Republican opponents. But when they hit Washington, they meekly vote the way they’re instructed by House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid. They shelve their moderation and become foot soldiers in the war to bring socialism to America.
We have to expose their game. But we can’t wait until 2010 to do it. Obama is changing America in important ways right now, and to let him continue his fundamental alterations in our economy, government, and even lifestyle is unthinkable.
These moderate Democrats are Obama’s Achilles’ heel. They are the weak links in his congressional majority. They won election as moderates, and they vote any way their leaders tell them to—and right now, that means that they are voting as socialists.
Never in history has Congress been more partisan than it is right now. It has never until now, for example, followed the model of the New York State Legislature. The New York lawmakers have a tradition they call a “short roll call”: to save time, rather than call the name of every legislator, they just ask the majority leader and minority leader how they vote and then ask if any member wants to vote differently from his leader. Usually, nobody does.
The U.S. Congress has always held itself to a higher standard of independence. Members of Congress—even junior members—have never been shy about breaking ranks, and party whips traditionally have a difficult time keeping them in line.
Today, however, they might as well be using the short roll call in Washington. Few members vote differently from what their party leader wishes.
To derail Obama’s rush toward socialism, we need to bring incredible pressure on the moderate swing members of Congress.
Why have these normally independent members become such automatons? It’s not that they’re less bright or more inclined to follow the dictates of Gilbert and Sullivan in their play H.M.S. Pinafore:
I grew so rich that
I was sent by a pocket borough into Parliament
I always voted at my party’s call
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
There’s one reason that these congressmen and senators are toeing the party line more faithfully than ever before: because the party increasingly controls their campaign money. No longer do candidates get most of their funds from loyal constituents back home. Instead, prominent donors from around the nation and PACs allied with the party give contributions to whomever the party leaders designate. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid can turn the spigot on or off at will. And no one dares to cross them.
But if we call attention to the hypocrisy of these Democratic senators and congressmen—who campaign as moderates and vote as extreme leftists—we can make the cost of their party-line behavior too steep to bear and begin to fan the flames of independence and moderation.
But we need to focus our energies on the weakest links in the chain.
In 2010, the following Democratic senators will be up for reelection. It’s up to us to expose their socialist votes, pressure them to change course, and defeat them in 2010:
Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas
Barbara Boxer of California
Michael Bennet of Colorado
Christopher