[Mb-civic] An article for you from Michael Butler.

Thu Mar 9 11:45:44 PST 2006

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MACHO MOMS AND DEADBEAT DADS
Mar 9th 2006  

The Democrats are finally invading the Republicans' national-security
turf

"PRESIDENT BUSH wants to sell [six American ports] to the United Arab
Emirates--a country that had diplomatic ties with the Taliban," says
Harold Ford, a bright young Democratic congressman from Tennessee. In a
television ad promoting his bid for a Senate seat, he says that, unlike
George Bush, he believes that "we shouldn't outsource our national
security to anyone."

At last, the Democrats have found a national-security issue they can
agree to sound tough on. DP World, a firm owned by the Dubai
government, is buying P&O, a British firm that operates six American
ports. The public are outraged. Never mind that the UAE is an American
ally, or that port security will remain in federal hands, or that a
port-management firm has a financial interest in not blowing up the
ports it manages. Some two-thirds of Americans oppose the deal.

For the Democrats, this is a great opportunity. For years, they have
enjoyed a consistent advantage over Republicans on "mommy" issues, such
as education and health care. But Republicans have trounced them on
"daddy" issues, such as killing terrorists and defending the homeland.
The Democrats have lost a lot of elections because they are easy to
caricature as the party that thinks "there are no enemies, just friends
whose grievances we haven't yet accommodated," as Mark Steyn, a
conservative columnist, once put it. 

To turn this around, the Democrats need to sound both resolute and
united. And the fortuitous thing about the Dubai ports deal is that it
unites disparate strands of Democratic thought. Opposing the deal is
not just about protecting American ports from Islamist terrorists. It
also appeals to the party's protectionist wing--hence Mr Ford's use of
that dog-whistle word "outsource". And it appeals to those who see the
Bush administration as a conspiracy to benefit rapacious corporations. 

Democratic blogs are going wild about the fact that John Snow, Mr
Bush's treasury secretary and also the chairman of the committee that
approved the Dubai deal, used to be head of CSX, an American firm that
sold its port operations to DP World in 2004. That was after Mr Snow
had left CSX, and no one has managed to explain how he might have
profited from approving the Dubai deal, but it sounds fishy, at least
to those who have written off the Bush team as a bunch of crooks. 

There are three further reasons why Democrats have seized on the ports
issue. It gives them a soundbite--"Arab hands off our ports"--that even
the dimmest voter can understand. (Such soundbites have traditionally
been a Republican strong point.) It allows them to pander to racist
voters with plausible deniability. (Again, this is usually Republican
turf.) And it looks like an opportunity to defeat the hated Mr Bush,
not least because Republicans are nearly as suspicious of the deal as
Democrats are. On March 8th, a House panel dominated by Republicans
voted 62-2 to block the DP World deal--even though Mr Bush has promised
to veto any such attempt. 

All this hoohah comes at a time when Mr Bush's national-security
credentials are already looking tarnished. Terrorists continue to blow
up mosques in Iraq (and a Hindu temple in India). The administration
does not know how to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb (see
article[1]). Hamas's electoral victory casts doubt on the notion that
spreading democracy in the Middle East will curb terrorism. Could it be
that the Daddy party is not, in fact, keeping Americans safe? Will
Americans turn to Mommy instead? 

Recent polls suggest the Republicans are indeed losing their lead on
national security. A recent Gallup poll found 40% of respondents
thought the Democrats would do a better job of protecting America
against terrorism and military threats, while 45% preferred the
Republicans. So the GOP's advantage has not disappeared, but it is half
what it was in September and only a third as large as it was in 2003,
when Republicans led Democrats by 51% to 36% on this issue (see chart). 

If this trend were to continue, the Democrats could reasonably expect
to start winning elections. But Michael O'Hanlon, a security analyst at
the Brookings Institution, warns against complacency. "Mr Bush has
taken a short-term hit. But it is wishful thinking for Democrats to
suppose that one month of bad news has wiped out 30 years of Republican
advantage on national security," he says. 

Republicans may have lost some of their lustre, but Democrats haven't
gained much, argues Mr O'Hanlon. Mr Bush may not have shown much skill,
but he has shown resolve in Iraq. And at home, his Department of
Homeland Security has done as good a job "as you could reasonably
expect". Databases have been integrated and border security tightened
to the extent that al-Qaeda has a hard time getting into America. 

 There remain serious weaknesses, of course. America's borders are
still porous, its chemical plants vulnerable, and it is a long way from
winning the battle for Muslim hearts and minds, as a young man named
Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar demonstrated last week by allegedly driving a
Jeep Cherokee across a college campus in North Carolina running down
students. 

Since Mr Taheri-azar was born in Iran, his one-man JIHAD has
strengthened the hand of those who think that America's chief
national-security problem is unassimilated immigrants. This view is
most common among Republicans. The Senate Judiciary Committee was
trying this week to cobble together an immigration bill that combined
stricter controls with a guest-worker programme, as Mr Bush wants. But
Republicans on the committee are divided, and if they cannot agree, an
enforcement-only bill might pass. 

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee has published a list of
Republican "failures on homeland security", which consists mostly of
Republican failures to back Democrat-sponsored extra spending. The
Democrats have struggled to offer a coherent alternative. On Iraq, the
party is divided between those who think America should pull out now
and those who would prefer to stabilise the place first. The former
course would probably spark an Iraqi civil war (which, to be fair, most
Americans expect to happen anyway), while the latter approach is the
same as Mr Bush's. 

One problem for the Democrats is that since Saddam Hussein's weapons of
mass destruction were not found, Mr Bush has justified his war on
idealistic grounds: replacing tyranny with democracy. Other
Republicans, such as Senator Sam Brownback, take an even more
moralistic line on foreign policy (see article[2]).

TRUST US, WE'RE REALISTS
 Since the days of Woodrow Wilson, such liberal internationalism has
traditionally been a Democratic position. Democrats who oppose Mr Bush
find themselves arguing for a more "realist" approach--that America
should be more cautious about trying to democratise the Islamic world.
Many old liberals are uncomfortable with sounding so Kissingerian,
which is one reason why the party now struggles to find a platform it
can unite around, argues Peter Beinart, author of "The Good Fight", a
forthcoming book on liberals and foreign policy. 

Both at home and abroad, the Democrats' best bet is probably to harp on
about the Bush administration's undoubted incompetence. Bumper stickers
of the "I've fixed Iraq, now I'll fix New Orleans" type will doubtless
help. From her perch in the Senate, Hillary Clinton, the party's
current frontrunner in the 2008 presidential stakes, is doing a fair
job of sounding both hawkish and competent. For every threat, from
terrorism to bird flu, she issues a timely, carefully-worded press
release. She is also mastering the art of the empty patriotic gesture,
long a Republican speciality: for example, co-sponsoring a bill to ban
flag-burning. 

Other Democrats think the party should go further. Steve Jarding and
Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, two Democratic consultants, want to "hold the
Republicans' feet to the fire" on national security, by pointing out
how many top Republicans have dodged military service. The pair has an
impressive record of wooing elusive rural, white male votes for
Democrats, such as when they helped Mark Warner win the governorship of
Virginia, a Republican stronghold, in 2001. But both sides can play
hardball: Republicans gleefully point out that Bill Clinton was
advising Dubai officials on the ports deal even as his wife was
denouncing it. 

For the foreseeable future, the Democrats will find it hard to supplant
the Republicans as the party of national security. But to win
elections, they don't need to beat them; only to neutralise their
advantage. And that could happen. 

-----
[1] http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=5605667
[2] http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=5603475

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