Dana Milbank, Washington Post
It was billed as a post-primary unity event at Democratic National Committee headquarters yesterday. But the unity fell apart before the opening “thank you all for coming.”
As 18 elected Democrats filed into the party’s conference room for the show of force, DNC Chairman Howard Dean, evidently not realizing the microphone was picking up his words, took a swipe at Sen. Chuck Schumer, the loquacious leader of the Senate Democrats’ campaign effort.
“Wait until Schumer stops talking,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested to Dean.
“That’ll be a long wait,” Dean replied. Then began the meeting.
It seems that nothing can stop the Democrats from taking the White House and expanding their congressional majorities in November. But give them time. They’re Democrats, after all.
The famously fractious party is trying to apply wallpaper to the foundational cracks left by the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton saga. But if yesterday’s unity kickoff is any indication, the party is less interested in rallying around its own nominee than in rallying against John McCain.
“We have as a Republican nominee a flawed candidate,” Reid proclaimed. “His temperament is wrong, he’s wrong on the war, he’s wrong on the economy.”
“Today we stand united as a Democratic Party focused on putting an end to the idea of a third Bush term, which we would get with John McCain,” said Dean.
“In Iraq we have a war without end,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi added, “and John McCain says ‘100 more years.’ ”
In their opening remarks, Dean, Pelosi and Reid mentioned the Republican Party’s candidate by name 17 times, more than they did their own party’s likely nominee.
But perhaps this should not be surprising. Walk toward the entrance to the DNC headquarters from South Capitol Street and the first thing you see is a McCain campaign poster (closer inspection reveals that it says “Lobbyists for McCain”). Hanging over the entrance is a banner mentioning not Obama but his opponent: “John McCain = 3rd Bush Term.”
The negative strategy may have something to do with the need to win over the 18 million people who voted for Clinton. They may not have fallen for Obama’s charms during the primary — but perhaps they can be convinced that McCain is the greater evil.
That strategy left the leaders making, well, ballpark generalizations about Obama. “He is truly an all-star,” Reid submitted. “If we were talking about baseball, this man can run the bases, he hits for the long ball, he’s really good at picking out singles, he’s somebody that’s a team player.”
“We can be such an integral part of this team,” offered West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin.
“We’re all on the same team,” announced Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.).
The Democrats treaded gingerly around Clinton. Each time her name was praised, the group broke into applause, with the exception of Rep. Jim Clyburn (S.C.), who held a newspaper in one hand and thumbed his BlackBerry with the other.
“Her knowledge, her eloquence, her stamina, her commitment to the future made us all very proud,” Pelosi gushed. In her eagerness to praise Clinton, Pelosi lost track of what day it was. “Today, in case you didn’t know it, June 2nd, is the 45th anniversary of the signing of the Equal Pay Act,” she said. “We want all of those women who came out for Hillary Clinton — and for Barack Obama, but those especially for Hillary Clinton — to know that the work goes on.”
But happy words alone may not be enough to win over the disaffected Clinton crowd: women and blue-collar white voters. Hence the need to raise the Bush-McCain specter. Pelosi argued that “women and blue-collar workers, whatever their race, have the most to gain by the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States and the most to lose by the election of John McCain.”
Dean opened with the theme: “Senator McCain represents more of the same failed Bush policies. . . . Senator McCain has been one of Bush’s staunchest allies. . . . He makes President Bush look like the model of fiscal discipline.”
Pelosi followed that with a call-and-response routine. “On George Bush’s watch we have lost 325,000 jobs just this year, and John McCain says four more years. On Bush’s watch, gas prices have skyrocketed above $4 a gallon, and John McCain says four more years. On Bush’s watch one in 10 Americans are at risk of losing their homes. . . . John McCain says four more years.”
Reid followed that with a discussion of “this surreal world that John McCain has signed on to,” where gas prices are high and torture is kept hush-hush.
CNN’s Kathleen Koch pointed out the difficulty in wooing Clinton voters, who “may stay home and not vote, or they may vote for Senator McCain.”
