SHORTER TOM SCHALLER. Tonight my wife and I are having dinner with friends who are in DC for the swearing-in of a good friend of theirs who is a newly elected senator (hint: It's not Bob Corker.) I think I'll offer a simple toast:
Here's to the first Democratic majority -- ever -- that is not dependent on support from southern racists.
Over the next few years, there will be plenty of occasion to quibble over whether the Dems are selling out, botching the strategy, pushing for too little or perhaps too much. Some of it has already started. But on these two days, let's remember that this is the beginning of something that American politics has never seen before. The last time there was a Democratic majority in both houses, it depended on the likes of Richard Shelby and Billy Tauzin. Earlier majorities featured such folks as Phil Gramm, James Eastland, and Strom Thurmond. Many things have changed in the last twelve years, and we're all going to be groping in the dark a bit to understand the contours of the new era of politics. But we are starting with a gift that FDR, LBJ, Carter and Clinton could only dream of, and today and tomorrow, let's just be thankful for it. (I should clarify that when I say "support of Southern racists," I mean not simply that Gramm, Tauzin, Eastland, etc. were personally racist -- I have no idea what's in their hearts -- but that their policies and language reflected the racial hostility of some of their constituents, who were at one time central to the Democratic coalition. We are lucky to be rid of them.)
--Mark Schmitt
