Pop quiz: If the Democrats are going to stand a chance of beating George W. Bush in 2004, they are going to have to put tremendous effort and creativity into winning over which of the following groups of voters: a) gay men and lesbians or b) people (gay, straight, whatever) who currently think that the post-September 11 United States is just somehow more secure in Republican hands?
Yes, the question is a set-up. Republicans enjoy a bulbous advantage -- 30 points, even 40 in some surveys -- over Democrats on questions of foreign and domestic security. Sure, there are ways in which this isn't fair: the Department of Homeland Security was the Democrats' idea, the GOP's propagandists turn honorable dissent into treachery, all that. But however it got to be a fact, a fact it is. And it's not just a fact. It is the central fact of the presidential election at this early stage. The Democratic nominee will not stand a chance until he (I'm throwing out Carol Moseley Braun here; indulge me) puts some conviction and muscle behind a set of proposals that can convince Americans that the party is serious about fighting terrorism and protecting the national perimeter, and that the GOP doesn't own the issue.
So it was a bit depressing to see Democratic reaction to two recent GOP-driven news events: the musings of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) on sexual desires both human and, oddly, canine; and the Republican Party's announcement that it will hold its New York convention as close to the anniversary of the September 11 attacks as it can get away with. That Democrats went into high dudgeon over the former but had almost nothing to say about the latter shows a party trapped in a cage built of its own timidity and lack of imagination -- a party that knows well how to address the particular concerns of its loyal constituencies but has little purchase on how to speak broadly to more general concerns.
We all know by now what Santorum said. The remarks were ignorant and hateful. They were informed, if that's the word, by the great ethical fallacy of homophobia that the right encourages and exploits: that homosexuality is a "correctable," as it were, cultural choice, and not an immutable (for the most part) biological fact -- and, being a choice, is indeed morally indistinguishable from "choosing" to have it off with Sister Sadie or with Fido. Santorum's comments deserved to be denounced, and certainly should have been by more members (or at least one member!) of his own party.
That said, there is at this point a reflexive and dogmatic feel to the howls of outrage and demands for apology that have become the standard liberal response to such broadsides (and a disingenuous aspect, it might be added, because such apologies are always offered as a form of ass-covering and not in genuine good faith, and they are always accepted in similar ill spirit). It's not clear in the present case exactly what such howls and demands will accomplish. Santorum, in point of fact, has not apologized and seems to have no plans to do so.
And while we're dealing in facts, let's face another one: Santorum's comments will not hurt him. Political strategist James Carville once described Pennsylvania as "Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between." Most Pennsylvanians, even rural ones who don't meet many openly gay people, are not raging homophobes, but neither are they sitting around waiting for Santorum to put himself in the good graces of the Human Rights Campaign Fund. Nor will they be inclined to withhold their votes for him on the basis of this dustup.
I've long felt that Democrats and liberal groups should stop issuing demands for apologies. First of all, it makes liberals sound a bit whiny, and second, the logic of the demand-apology cycle is self-defeating because all it really ends up doing is to hand the offender (and his or her defenders) a chance to look "big" even though everyone knows the apology was utterly insincere. Instead, liberals should take a page out of the right's altogether more aggressive playbook.
In Active Faith, his memoir of the rise of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed offers a useful model. In early 1993, during the gays-in-the-military brouhaha, The Washington Post, in a front-page article, referred to Reed's cadres as "poor, uneducated, and easy to command." Reed writes that when a copy of that article "churned through my fax machine that morning, I knew immediately that we had a major victory." After a little mobilization, the paper's fax lines were tied up for hours with unsolicited copies of Christian Coalition members' diplomas and tax returns. No apologies were demanded. Instead, a constituency was mobilized and an enemy put on notice that it was being monitored. That's how you change behavior.
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee made an announcement on April 21 that is in every way more offensive and shocking than any idiocy that tumbled out of Santorum's mouth. For the entire history of the two-party system in this country, the parties have had a gentlemen's agreement that the conventions will take place before Labor Day, with the real, head-to-head campaigning to commence thereafter. But as we know very well, we are no longer dealing with gentlemen. So now the Republicans announce that they are going to meet in New York City about three miles from Ground Zero as near to the anniversary of the tragedy as possible. And they in essence acknowledge, discreetly but quite openly, that the purpose is to squeeze as much political gain out of the attacks, and the national-security issue, as they can.
This is a many-layered offense -- to the traditions and integrity (such that remains) of the American political process, to the firefighters and police officers who did not give their lives so that Bush could later use their deaths to get a bounce in the polls, to every American citizen who doesn't drink Karl Rove's Kool-Aid, and to plain decency.
And what have the Democrats had to say about this? Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe issued one statement, and to be fair, it was toughly worded. (Although he did issue two official statements on the Santorum flap.) But aside from that, I've seen nada. So here we have it: The one inviolable political rule that supposedly emerged from 9-11 was that no one, and no party, was to seek partisan advantage from the tragedy. Yet the Republicans are doing exactly that, and the Democrats scamper like mice. They hand Bush the issue on a golden platter and say practically nothing. It just so happens that September 11 is a Thursday -- historically, the evening on which the party's nominee gives his convention speech. Do they really have the cojones to . . . one supposes they'll probably do it the week before, but why wouldn't they choose the 11th? It's OK with the Democrats!
Here's what the Democrats could do, but probably won't:
One: As many Democratic senators as possible -- and it has to be senators; House members don't get press coverage, so they don't really matter -- stand together at a press conference and denounce this rancid politicization of tragedy. Maybe Hillary Clinton can round up that guy from the international firefighters' union who has become such a supporter of hers, and she and Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) can persuade some survivors of 9-11 victims to join them. Fifteen senators and a half-dozen family members would amount to a critique of a different order than a press statement you have to seek out on the party's Web site.
Two: Announce that, because the Republicans have tossed 150 years of history and decorum out the window, Democrats are reconvening their own convention committee and exploring the possibility of rescheduling their convention for late August.
Three: Get really creative and declare that the era of the convention is over -- which is something we've all known to be true for about 20 years anyway -- and then announce that they're not even having a convention in the traditional sense. Maybe a mini, two-day gathering, so the nominee can make his speech with network coverage. But otherwise, take the money saved and spend it more wisely on other things, especially as they're running against a guy who destroyed another agreed-upon tradition (albeit only 30 years old this time) by refusing to abide by established spending limits and who will therefore have "more money than God," as the Republicans have lately become fond of saying. (Odd locution for such pious types, no?)
Four: Plan, or encourage others to plan, a serious, thoughtful, humble, dignified series of counter-events for the week the Republicans are in New York that show how real Americans -- Republicans who wish to participate included -- commemorate somber occasions.
Of course, none of this will happen. The Republicans will have their way, and Bush will maul them on the security issue. But, by God, Democrats will have the gay vote.
Michael Tomasky's column appears every Wednesday at TAP Online.
