While the national media relentlessly focus on all the problems in politics belonging to the Republican Party, even after the 2014 midterms – after which they projected all the same problems with minorities and the “far right” Tea Party faction in 2016 that they’d spent the last two years predicting.
What most journalists fail to do – at least in public – is diagnose anything wrong with the Democrats. For that, political junkies could turn to The Economist magazine, a popular Washington read for a British viewpoint. Their “Lexington” column lamented the Democrats right now are “An Army Without Generals.”
The party remains a potent force in national politics, even after 2014’s mid-term elections cost it control of the Senate and left it with fewer House members than at any time since 1946. But as Democrats head into the final two years of the Obama era, they resemble an army without a commander-in-chief, or even generals whom footsoldiers might follow into battle.
In Congress the Democratic leaders of the Senate and House are both in their 70s, as are many of their lieutenants. Both are crafty tacticians more than inspiring thinkers. Neither represents the future. Out in the country, Republicans can point to any number of governors who look like conservative champions, busy turning their states into laboratories for tax-cutting, government-shrinking experiments. Only a handful of Democratic governors similarly dominate their states’ politics—the most prominent, Jerry Brown of California, is 76 years old.
Hillary Clinton will dominate her party’s presidential primary if and when she says she is running. At the moment, she is a spectral presence—freezing the 2016 contest without offering leadership. If she does not run, it is not obvious who could replace her. Some like to daydream about Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Wall Street-bashing populist who is to the left of centre in her home state, Massachusetts, which is in turn to the left of centre of America as a whole. Ms Warren says she is not running for president (she favours the present tense), which makes her more sensible than her supporters: as a matter of cold electoral maths, she cannot win a nationwide contest.
Liberal reporters would never suggest within the earshot of voters that Hillary Clinton isn’t bursting forth with leadership qualities, or that Elizabeth Warren might be a bit too ideological. The Economist writer notes that President Obama is energetically trying to avoid “lame duck” status with executive actions, but notes that is his for his own legacy, not the Democratic Party’s next election.
Relations between Mr Obama and congressional Democrats are sourer than ever. In an unusual breach of decorum, the strains of the 2014 election prompted on-the-record grouching about the White House from a right-hand man to Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate. A December budget crunch saw Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats’ boss in the House, fulminate against her own president’s willingness to cut deals with Republicans.
Greybeards counsel calm. Presidents inevitably see their clout ebb as successors’ elections near, says Tom Daschle, who led Senate Democrats from 1995 to 2005. If Mrs Clinton runs for the nomination, she will become an alternative centre of power which will grow in importance. If she does not run, “there is a list of people waiting in the wings”, Mr Daschle soothes, offering as examples two very different senators: Ms Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand (the junior senator from New York and a politician of Clinton-level pragmatism, without the Clintons’ experience).
Other Democrats are less sure, seeing a problem that goes beyond personnel issues. “It is a little confusing who is leading the Democratic Party right now,” says a member of Congress who hears nothing “galvanising” from Mr Obama, and “no energy, no excitement”, from congressional bosses. Put another way, Democrats feel leaderless because the party lacks big, compelling ideas. Someone may yet fill that void. It needs to happen soon.
