JONATHAN CHAIT JUNE 14, 2010
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The usually astute historian Julian Zelizer, writing in Dissent, manages to cram a couple major misconceptions into one sentence here:
While Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy in 2006 and 2008 resulted in more congressional Democrats emanating from conservative districts, Pelosi (unlike Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) has not allowed this broader coalition to become a crippling barrier to legislative victory.
First, the degree to which Howard Dean's 50-state strategy contributed to Democratic successes in 2006 and 2008 is highly debatable. The notion of expanding the electoral map and trying to pick up Democratic seats in marginal Republican districts was not unique to Dean. That's what always happens to parties when they win. The main tactical argument between Dean and his critics rested on whether the party should devote its resources to the districts where it had competitive candidates -- that is, the districts where it did in fact pick up a lot of seats -- or whether it should literally spread its resources through all 50 states. You can argue that Dean's strategy was worthwhile, but at best it resulted in marginal gains over the tactics favored by other Democrats.
Second, Nancy Pelosi has done a lot of things right, but the straight comparison between her and Reid is totally unfair. Reid faces a a supermajority requirement that forces him to gain the unanimity of all 60 Democrats, a number he only had for a few months, and which includes Joe Lieberman. It's safe to say that imposing a 60% supermajority requirement upon the House would make Pelosi look far less effective. Pelosi didn't let the conservative Democrats become a barrier to legislative victory because she didn't need their votes. If Reid could pass anything with a majority vote, and could let Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln et al walk any time he wanted, he'd look like quite a hero. As it stands, pulling together 60 votes for comprehensive health care reform is the most remarkable legislative achievement of our time. The House vote, while impressive for Pelosi, pales in comparison.
There's a reason that House Speakers are so frequently described as iron-willed rulers while Senate Majority Leaders are so frequently seen as feckless. (Noam Scheiber wrote a great piece a few years ago about the recurrent GOP tendency to turn against their Senate Majority Leaders.)
6 comments
Minor quibble, but I think Chait and Zelizer both miss the purpose and benefit of the 50-state strategy. If you focus only on funding races where you have a viable candidate, over time you inexorably reduce the number of districts in which it's possible to compete. Which pretty well described the course of Democratic campaigns from 1996 through 2004. The 50-state strategy was designed to counter that trend, and rebuild state organizations at the lower levels so as to make it possible to run viable candidates in the future. That effort paid some dividends in the presidential race of 2008, but probably had little to no impact on congressional races in 2006. Congressional races in 2006 or 2008 were never the point; the money seeded to embattled state committees under the 50-state strategy was about rebuilding the infrastructure to win local and legislative elections in order to have viable candidates to contest federal and statewide offices in the coming decade. And not just the candidates, but the paid and volunteer party staff without whom even viable local candidates can't win.
- rhubarbs
June 14, 2010 at 5:46pm
I have been critical of Harry Reid's leadership in the past. After the Senate health care bill vote in late March, I felt humbled in the extreme. The man is a parliamentary genius. Your post is dead on, Jonathan. Nancy Pelosi didn't have to contend with anything resembling the difficulties that Reid coped with. Now, back to Andrew Sullivan. He has another fatuous post on you entitled Chait's Self-Fulfilling Diagnosis, Ctd. You utterly destroyed his last post on you and therefore he is reduced to ill-tempered fulminations against you. Were you aware that your usual debating tactic is to turn disagreement with opponents into psychoanalyses of them? I didn't know that either and I have read a huge amount of your journalism. What you did do is note that Peter Beinart has a two-minutes-to-midnight quality about him which led him to lecture the Democrats - entirely erroneously as it transpired - that they needed to purge the antiwar contingent from their ranks. Utterly unchastised, Beinart now is going hysterical about the polity of Israel which exceeds any empirical reasons to do so. In a different fashion, Andrew lurched from supporting the torture regime of Bush/Cheney to sounding like something resembling Noam Chomsky. So it is natural to ask what brought this about in the psyche of Andrew Sullivan. But for doing that you were blasted yet again by that heroic moral arbiter of our time, AS. As you well-know, Andrew is a total hysteriac. He is half-mad with fear over Sarah Palin, the Alaska ditz with national pretensions. Don't worry, Andrew, she is highly unlikely to become president. Now I am certainly disconcerted by Palin but I don't wet the bed over her presence on the national stage.
- liberal reformer
June 14, 2010 at 6:01pm
"You can argue that Dean's strategy was worthwhile, but at best it resulted in marginal gains over the tactics favored by other Democrats." I don't dispute this, but those marginal gains also meant the difference between health care reform passing and not passing -- or at least being even more watered down when passed (i.e., less subsidies, less regulation of the self-insured, etc.). The same is true of Stimulus II, which passed by a very, very narrow margin. So it may be just a marginal gain, but on the policy level, it could make a huge difference. But yeah, the first problem we have with legislation is the accountability-destroying supermajority vote requirements for items other than Constitutional Amendments, veto overrides, and other measures that the Constitution explicitly says requires a super-majority vote to pass.
- jimbomoron
June 14, 2010 at 6:04pm
there is a 60 vote supermajority required to pass most anything in the Senate because Reid and Senate Democrats have allowed that unholy tradition to continue. Put McConnell in charge with 51Repiublican votes and that requirement will disappear very quickly.
- drofnats1
June 14, 2010 at 11:58pm
The Senate is by nature a more Conservative body. Smaller (and typically more Conservative) states get the same representation as much larger (and typically more Liberal) states. To make the Senate similar to the House Idaho would have to be reduced to 1 Senator and California would have 25. I agree with Jim that the "marginal" seats picked up in 2006 and 2008 are very important. As rhubarbs said the 50 State strategy was a long term strategy based on rebuilding local committees. In the end it really didn't take very much away from higher profile races, it just shifted some money away from consultants and to local party organizations - in the end would you rather see 40 or 50 county committees get a part time employee or have one campaign get half a day of work from Bob Shrum?
- Attrill
June 15, 2010 at 1:19am
Oh, for Chait, Dean is the anti-Reagan, Dean's words the anti-writ. EVERYTHING Dean did was bad, any good ideas attributed to him were mis-attributed and to even suggest otherwise is heretical and will not be considered on this blog. I mean, it has been first-principle with him since he took up his Holy Crusade in late 2003. Yawn.
- Tilghman
June 15, 2010 at 12:01pm