A specter is haunting the Democratic Party: the specter of whiny liberals.
A late March poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press contained excellent news on the Social Security front. Support for privatization continues to drop, and opposition continues to correlate strongly with awareness of the issue. And while young people remain generally supportive of the idea, young people who've "heard a lot" about it do not, suggesting that Republican dreams of phasing the program out by mobilizing the young are doomed to failure.
The bad news, however, was equally important. President George W. Bush's job approval rating has continued to slide down to 45 percent. The Republican leaders in Congress are doing even worse at 39 percent, suggesting that Democrats are well positioned to make gains in the 2006 midterms. But this erosion of popular support for the GOP has not been accompanied by a rise in the public's esteem of Democrats. Instead, approval of Democratic leaders in Congress has sunk from 38 percent about a year ago to 37 percent today.
Such news prompts liberals to do what we do best: complain -- specifically about why Democrats aren't better at winning elections and getting the chance to implement liberal policies. Blogger Ezra Klein looked at the data and concluded things "are going surprisingly badly" for the party's congressional leadership and the only hope is for DNC chairman Howard Dean to step up and start playing a larger public role. But before anyone does anything rash, it's worth looking a bit more closely at the nature of the problem. Just 39 percent of voters have a favorable view of Republican congressional leaders, but fully 75 percent of self-identified Republicans like them. At 37 percent, Democrats do only marginally worse among the public at large (indeed, the gap is within the poll's margin of error). Where the Democratic leaders do much worse is in earning the respect of their base -- only 56 percent of the rank and file thinks well of Senator Harry Reid, Representative Nancy Pelosi, and the party's other legislative leaders.
A two-point gap among the general public in the context of a gaping 19-point gap among partisans can mean only one of two things. Either independents like Democrats a lot more than they like Republicans, or else self-identified Democrats badly outnumber self-identified Republicans. Either way, that should mean there's an excellent chance of getting a Congress that will restore fiscal sanity and begin shifting the national conversation away from bizarre stunts, endless tax cuts, and whoring for business lobbyists.
It means, in short, that Democrats are well positioned to win. If, that is, they can get their approval rating among Democrats anywhere near where the GOP is among its supporters.
Winning, needless to say, is what liberals would like to see more of from the Democratic Party's leaders. After the 2004 defeat, nobody held the Democratic leadership in high regard. They had, after all, just managed to lose against a political movement whose redeeming virtues are hard to think of. We all offered our criticisms of what could have been done differently and what should be done differently in the future. Liberals disagreed, naturally enough, but we all wanted to win. But now that the Democrats are positioned to win, nobody seems to have noticed, and liberal disaffection has become the problem.
One could pin the blame for this, too, on the party leadership. But to be honest, the difficulty lies mostly with us. Reid, Pelosi, and others started 2005 with a weak hand, presiding over shrinking minorities in both houses of Congress and facing off against a Republican Party whose discipline in unmatched in American history. Under the circumstances, they've been doing an excellent job. The White House's two most pernicious initiatives -- Social Security privatization and steep Medicaid cuts -- both seem doomed in the Senate. Through opposition to the nominations of Alberto Gonzalez as attorney general and John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, Democrats are finally engaging with the national security debate. Unlike in 2001 and 2003, the Senate Democratic caucus was united in its opposition to further tax cuts.
The House Democrats, facing an even tougher situation in a body in which minority rights have essentially vanished, have likewise managed some achievements. They've raised Tom DeLay's public profile and built awareness of his dirty dealings.
Of course, they haven't done everything right, and they may make mistakes in the future. Most of all, the test will be in November '06. But for now, giving credit where due is the best thing liberals can do to advance our goals in Congress and beyond.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.
