Left on the Defensive - FreedomWorks

“I’ll buy dinner for anybody who can say what Democrats stand for. So far nobody’s taken me up on it.”

-Steve Rosenthal, political director, AFL-CIO

America’s most famous adolescent, Bill Clinton, is back in the news this week. His globe-trotting, money-making ex-presidency is the most newsworthy thing Democrats have going right now. FYI, Clinton thinks the Marc Rich pardon was bad politics and claims he spent a lot of money on terrorism. Additionally, Al Gore made some news when he shaved his beard. But other than that, the opposition party is AWOL on the issue debate.

That’s not surprising. The last big liberal idea was Hillary-care. The two accomplishments of the Clinton presidency, NAFTA and welfare reform were both watered down versions of conservative initiatives. Clinton’s political successes were not the result of an intellectual offensive. He was an accomplished counter-puncher. When conservatives put forward ideas on Medicare, Social Security, tax reform, school choice, and spending cuts, Clinton used the bully pulpit to stop these ideas in their tracks. He was good at benefiting politically from doing nothing.

But now he’s gone, and Democrats still don’t want to do anything. Social Security is going broke and the next generation of retirees is being taxed at such a high rate that the return on social security has become grossly unfair. But, the House Democrat’s point man on Social Security, Rep. Bob Matsui (Calif.), says we don’t need to do anything right now. The House Minority Leader, Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) wants a vote on Social Security – on the President’s plan. Gephardt doesn’t actually have a plan of his own.

Does anybody understand the Democrats position on taxes? They say the Bush tax cut was too big, caused the recession, and favored the rich. But they don’t support repealing it. Nor do they support making it permanent.

They believe in “fiscal discipline.” But they support all of the president’s increased spending for defense and homeland security and oppose his efforts to restrain the budget in other areas. So they actually want more spending and bigger deficits than the president has proposed, but they say he’s been irresponsible.

Democrat strategists Carville, Greenburg, and Shrum admit that President Bush appears “to want to tackle major national problems. Behind his ideas is a relatively coherent philosophy – small government, individual freedom, national self-reliance. The policy proposals – tax cuts, privatizing social security, vouchers, pursuing terrorists – are advanced with an unrelenting consistency.”

In short, the liberals have become intellectually bankrupt and they know it. So, watch out. Smarter people than I say, in politics, if you are playing defense, you’re losing. And without, question, the Left is playing defense. But liberals love to play defense and they have a game plan to scare senior citizens before the mid-term elections:

“We accuse the Republicans of squandering the opportunity to solve our most pressing national problems – to secure Social Security and provide health care coverage during retirement.”

-Greenburg, Carville, Shrum 3/7/02

Democrat leaders plan to use their perceived credibility to scare seniors with false and misleading information about Social Security.

Their scare message will claim:

Conservatives broke the Social Security lockbox, took money out, and gave it to the rich in tax cuts.

Conservatives looked the other way while their friends, the top executives at Enron, looted the company and destroyed the life savings employees had accumulated in their 401(k)s.

Now conservatives want to do the same to you with their scheme to privatize Social Security.

Without an effective strategy that educates key segments of the population about real social security reform, we should expect the liberal strategy to work again in many tight, battleground elections this fall.

How can we stop the scare tactics? Our side needs an aggressive, proactive, and early campaign to provide senior citizens the facts on Social Security. We know what’s coming, so rather than try and run away from the issue, let’s use the Left’s strategy against them. The Left wants this election to be about scaring seniors. What happens if they fail because conservatives mounted an effective counter strategy? We can claim a mandate for Social Security reform for 2003. We can turn our ideas into action.

For years the Left has ceded the issue agenda. It’s time they start paying a price, rather than reaping rewards for their barren intellectual core.