Liberals Surrender Without a Peep

Campaign ‘96: A few weeks ago, an event of towering political significance took place when the congressional wing of the Democratic Party formally capitulated to the Democratic president. The event was not a pageant on the foredeck of a stately battleship or in a Beaux Arts railway car. There was no delivery of the swords of the vanquished into the hands of the victor or an initialing of a beribboned instrument of surrender. Just a modest public meeting in a Washington suburb at which Democratic congressional leaders unveiled “Families First,” a declaration of the principles on which Democratic House and Senate candidates can run in November.

Even the most superficial glance at “Families First” impresses the reader with its mildness, even blandness. Its very inoffensiveness is precisely what makes this manifesto so significant, for it represents an acceptance by Democrats in Congress of the Clinton “New Democrat” doctrine, the creed he invented in 1992, scrapped in 1993 and then resurrected after the 1994 election debacle.

The event is significant on two levels: the acquiescence of the overwhelmingly liberal congressional Democrats to a document of conspicuous moderation, and their evident belief that Clinton will win in November and that by cleaving to him and his principles, they, too, will be winners and perhaps even regain the majority.

Of course, they may turn out to be wrong, and some of the more zealous among them may continue to ride forth under the banner of generous and expansive government, but that will be only because they represent constituencies that won’t fit the new philosophical template.

Specifically, by calling in “Families First” for tougher standards to be applied to welfare recipients, programs to deter teenage pregnancy, wider drug testing and more money for police, the minority in Congress seeks to once again be the majority.

There are, of course, items in the plan that give off the sulfurous scent of the old liberalism, but even with proposals on health care reform, child care and public works added to appease the true believers, the course proposed is that of metric incrementalism rather than fire-breathing intensity. Even so steady a liberal voice as Washington state’s Rep. Jim McDermott, the apostle of federally run health care, was reported to have fallen on his sword and accepted the bloodless approach.

It is important to note one thing that the House and Senate Democrats have not done: pledge undying love for Bill Clinton. The relationship between this White House and the Democrats on Capitol Hill is not a happy one. It was they, after all, who marched alone into the cannon’s mouth in 1993 to support his deficit reduction bill with its increased taxes, only to be left stranded by his saying later in Houston that his bill had raised taxes too much. It was the equivalent of Lord Raglan shooting the survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade, for it was that vote, more than any other, that cost the seats of the Democrats who voted “aye.”

Then there was Clinton’s about-face in accepting Republican demands for a balanced budget, which prompted the terrible-tempered Wisconsin liberal, Rep. Dave Obey, to sputter that if you didn’t like Clinton’s position on something, just wait a few weeks and it would change.

All of that is now a relic of wars past. The liberals have struck their colors and become, for the record if not necessarily in their hearts, New Democrats. The event had been long hoped for by those in the party who had tired of the ultra-liberal congressional wing bending the party’s presidential candidates to its will and then deserting them when the voters remained unsold. By failing to mount a challenge to Clinton in the primaries this year, liberals forfeited any chance of getting him to embrace their cause. The absence of a challenger coupled with the presentation of “Families First” proclaim the internment of liberalism in at least temporary exile.