January 2006 Issue

So much is going wrong for the Republicans—sinking poll numbers, the mess in Iraq, torture, scandal, and a bruising budget battle—that it is beginning to look like political change is coming.

Democrats are raising their voices, criticizing the Bush Administration in terms Bush’s opponents have been longing to hear.

When Representative John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, held his press conference to call for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq within six months, you knew the climate had shifted. Republicans denounced Murtha, an ex-Marine and one of his party’s biggest hawks, saying, in the memorable words of Representative Jean Schmidt of Ohio, “Cowards cut and run, Marines never do.”

Or as Vice President Cheney put it, “The President and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone.”

The counterattack backfired. “I like guys who got five deferments and [have] never been there and send people to war, and then don’t like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done,” Murtha retorted. When Republicans tried to expose Democratic hypocrisy on the issue by staging an up-or-down vote on immediate troop withdrawal, even leading anti-war Representative Dennis Kucinich voted against the measure, calling it a “trick.”

Some Democrats were afraid to embrace Murtha’s call to end the war. Most disappointing was Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee leader Rahm Emanuel, who told The Washington Post, “Jack Murtha went out and spoke for Jack Murtha.” As for Iraq policy, Emanuel added: “At the right time, we will have a position.”

Progressive politico David Sirota blasted Emanuel in his Huffington Post blog, demanding to know, “When, Rahm, is the ‘right time’?” Sirota called Emanuel the embodiment of the Democratic tendency to be “connivers, prevaricators . . . cowering, weak-kneed wimps . . . who have no moral compass.”

Some bloggers also blamed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for not more strongly backing Murtha right away. But other progressive Democrats were not nearly as concerned.

“I actually think Murtha by himself, to the people we have to reach, is more powerful than Murtha and Pelosi,” says Democratic strategist Steve Cobble. Cobble thinks it might have been a tactical decision for Democratic leaders not to jump into the limelight with Murtha and instead to let him stand alone as “an old, hardcore veteran hawk who had finally had enough.”

In any event, the Democrats are much more united than they used to be, pointing out both the lies that got us into Iraq and the need for a plan to get us out. Only four Senate Democrats oppose a timetable for withdrawal (Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Bill Nelson of Florida, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas).

In other policy areas, too, Democrats are speaking up. During the divisive budget battle in the House of Representatives, even Emanuel was acid in his summary of Republican plans to cut child care, food stamps, student loans, school lunch programs, and Medicaid to cover part, but not all, of a massive tax cut for the wealthy: “You guys give a whole new meaning to women and children first,” he said.

The Republican leadership was finally able to force the budget bill through the House, but with unanimous Democratic opposition and considerable hard feelings within their own party.

What does all this mean for 2006? Could there be another seismic shift, as in 1994, when Newt Gingrich led the Republican takeover of Congress?

It’s definitely possible. In the House, the Democrats would need to pick up fifteen seats to take over. It’s a tall order, but not as hard as winning fifty-three seats, which is what the Republicans managed in the historic, Gingrich-led upset. In the Senate, the Democrats need six more seats to win control.

Trying to take over either chamber is going to be an uphill fight. In the House, there are only about thirty competitive races around the country, according to Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, who runs the election-watching website the Crystal Ball. Sabato’s analysis of what he calls the “dirty thirty” Congressional races around the country labels seven races Democratic-leaning and eight races as tossups. The rest, he says, lean Republican. That means the Democrats have just enough of an opportunity to win, if everything goes right.

“The Democrats will have to go on an incredible winning streak (and defend their own incumbents) to take control,” says Roll Call editor Lou Jacobson. Jacobson, who follows races around the country, sees more chance for a Democratic takeover in the Senate than in the House.

That’s because of a phenomenon political observers have noted since 1980, in which almost all of the close Senate races around the country tend to break one way—for the Republicans in 1980 and 1994, and for the Democrats in 2000. Since the political tide is turning against the Republicans, the trend might favor the Democrats in the Senate.

“But here’s the problem with that analysis,” says Steve Cobble. “We won the close seats in 2000. So to win six seats, we have to win all the close ones.” Since there are only seven Senate seats around the country that might go the Democrats’ way, Cobble says, “when you start adding it up, it’s going to be hard.” Cobble thinks a Democratic takeover of the House might actually be more plausible.

“At this point in 1993, you couldn’t make a list of fifty seats the Republicans were going to take,” he says. But many seats the Republicans considered safe in the past could be vulnerable, particularly if turned-off Bush voters stay home in droves.

In order to make the kind of “tidal wave” showing they need to get back into power, the Democrats will have to convince voters that they are the party of change, as the Republicans managed to do in the mid-1990s.

Democrats need to unite around “some kind of reform agenda,” Cobble says—ending corruption, extending health care and Social Security protections, promoting a sane energy policy. Imagine the possibilities.