Hillarysworld

A Stunned and Dispirited Base

"Why don't they fight back?"

That's the question I've been hearing from the Democratic Party's stunned and dispirited base. For the past month, I've been on a book tour that has taken me to Asheville, N.C., Terre Haute, Ind., Austin and elsewhere. Everywhere I go, supporters of President Obama and his agenda ask me why so many Democrats in Washington don't stand up for what they say they believe.

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I've been hearing frustration at the willingness of Democrats to accommodate a Republican Party that refuses to give an inch. To progressives who may not understand the subtleties of inside-the-Beltway thinking, this looks like surrender.

Wednesday night, I gave a talk at Indiana State University. "You watch," said a man in the audience, "the Democrats are going to cave on the tax cuts for the rich, just like they caved on everything else."

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Let's examine this issue a little more closely. Making the tax cuts permanent for the wealthy would increase the deficit by $700 billion over the next decade. Which party claims to be urgently, desperately concerned about the deficit? The Republicans, of course. So which party is prepared to bust the budget, if that's what it takes, to serve the interests of the rich? The GOP. And which party, to get its way, refuses to approve desperately needed tax relief for the bruised and battered middle class? Once again, the Republicans.

Now, which party holds the presidency and, until January, ample majorities in both houses of Congress? That would be the Democrats. Which party can point to public opinion polls indicating that Americans support its position that the Bush tax cuts should be extended only for the middle class? That, too, would be the Democrats. And finally, which party somehow appears to be looking for a way to lose this argument and capitulate? Incredibly, the Democrats.

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But I've been meeting an awful lot of progressives around the country who share that delusion, if that's what it is. They despair that their neighbors don't know that it was George W. Bush who proposed the TARP bailout, not Obama - or that it worked, or that taxpayers are getting their money back. They wonder how health-care reform came to be defined not as a moral issue or a way to slow rising costs, which it is, but as a "big government takeover," complete with "death panels." Which it isn't.

What I'm hearing is frustration, and it's getting louder. I'm hearing the view that the Obama administration, which has done much good, can do better - by speaking clearly, standing its ground - and, when pushed by bullies, shoving back.

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