Putting the Democrats Together Again
WADE, RICHARD C.
Perspectives PUTTING THE DEMOCRATS TOGETHER AGAIN BY RICHARD C. WADE The recent struggle over the chairmanship of its national committee once again reveals the depth of the cleavage within the...
...The phrase "Cleaning the Augean stable" is used as an elevated codeword for a purge...
...But it was, after all, Reinhold Niebuhr, not Carmine DeSapio, who warned against inordinate self-righteousness in public affairs...
...The two traditions are necessary to the institution itself...
...Reformers, on the other hand, look upon a primary victory as a singular triumph of good over evil...
...It was not created by the McGovern candidacy...
...Those who lose, as well as those who win, have an obligation, at the very least, to sustain the system that provides them with the opportunity to differ...
...The people will respond to a Democratic party that shows greater self-discipline and deeper concern for the public interest...
...Harry Hopkins and Ed Flynn...
...This is not to suggest that the party imitate the Republicans by virtually abolishing the primaries...
...In the atmosphere that prevails, Moses and the Ten Commandments would be in danger until the last endorsements came in...
...United the Democratic party is the real majority...
...it is only to ask that, after the voters have spoken, everyone show a decent respect for their judgment...
...Though the sensible response to defeat would be some accommodation Richard C. Wade, the McGovern campaign chairman in New York, is Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City University...
...None of these descriptions is precisely accurate, yet, like all shorthand, each conveys in a broad way the essential nature of the competing factions...
...Harold Ickes and Ed Kelly...
...They interpret the results as a mandate to exile the sinner or, if he had once been a reformer, the fallen angel...
...This should be small consolation to the victors, however, for as the Democratic party weakens it becomes less worth controlling...
...The other side is not that bad...
...Every issue is submitted to a single question: "Who is supporting it...
...In a sense, the long-range future lies with the reformers...
...Merit or logic are irrelevant...
...Similarly, reformers are going to be increasingly grateful for the Democratic House and Senate that now comprise the only outside restraint on an unpredictable President who is noticeably callous about civil liberties and civil rights...
...Robert Strauss and his predecessor Jean Westwood have simply occupied a familiar stage where the actors change but the script offers few surprises...
...Let us remember that acupuncture is a Chinese medical device, not a technique of Democratic dialogue...
...Neither Strauss nor his opponents constitute half the threat to decent political processes that is posed by those who dreamed up the Watergate invasion, concealed campaign contributions, carpet-bombed Vietnam, and packed the Supreme Court with conservative mediocrities...
...indeed, these last months were only an evanescent moment in the long battle...
...Nor does a party of many mansions need to sacrifice its integrity...
...Regulars look upon a primary loss as somehow an affront to an institution of which they are the ordained custodians...
...A good beginning would be to mute the extravagant rhetoric bred by years of confrontation...
...Once beaten, the organization has to prove its power by winning the next one no matter who the candidates are or what the substantive issues might be...
...If the past is any guide, in 1976 the regulars will see the value of many McGovern proposals and accept them as their own...
...our side is not that good...
...Yet this awkward coalition nourished a nation's hope through the Great Depression, defended the world against Nazism, brought new dignity to millions of Americans, and quickened the country's sense of justice...
...Franklin D. Roosevelt managed to keep the factions together for almost two decades...
...The self-destructiveness of this internal struggle is so obvious that it ought not need discussion...
...Perspectives PUTTING THE DEMOCRATS TOGETHER AGAIN BY RICHARD C. WADE The recent struggle over the chairmanship of its national committee once again reveals the depth of the cleavage within the Democratic party...
...Ticket-splitting deprives nominations of their historic significance...
...As one witness asked plaintively at a hearing before the McGovern Commission three years ago: "What if we gave a reform party and nobody came...
...Senators and a Republican Mayor (until he changed parties...
...A second step would be to concentrate on the Nixon Administration at the next National Committee meeting rather than on internal affairs...
...Take a look at the well-known New Deal "family portrait," with F.D.R...
...The reformers provide the ideas, the freshness, and often the vigorous leadership...
...The split is variously described as the "old politics" versus the "new politics," or the "Roosevelt coalition" versus the "Kennedy-McCarthy (now McGovern) coalition," or the "regulars" versus the "reformers...
...The low estate of New York's Democratic party is the harvest of two decades of internecine warfare...
...the regulars furnish the organization, the continuity, and ordinarily the governmental bureaucrats...
...In New York State the Democrats enjoy a 3:2 majority in enrollment, but there is a Republican Governor, two Republican U.S...
...divided it is a constellation of permanent minorities...
...Democrats can make such contributions again, but not if they persist in acting as though their internal differences are more important than the public interest...
...A multimillion member party requires this variety if it is to adjust to the alternating moods the rhythm of history...
...financial backers are reluctant to invest in risky campaigns...
...The arithmetic is simple: There are not enough regulars left to win many more primaries, and there are not enough reformers around to win general elections...
...surrounded by the representatives of the competing groups frances Perkins and Jim Farley...
...what counts is who will "live with" the candidate or the proposal...
...Meanwhile, the public becomes monumentally bored And the Republicans win on a grand scale...
...And the end is nowhere in sight because the regulars don't know how to lose and the reformers don't know how to win...
...Judgments are clouded, personal relations jeopardized, simple differences of opinion become moral issues...
...with the winners, the usual reaction is "Don't get mad, get even...
...even the number of voters declines...
...the smallest problems are invested with cosmic proportions...
...They might even entrust the government to it again...
...The flood of new enrollees feels less tied to established party leadership and the older rank and file are dying off or retiring to Florida and California...
...The 1972 platform will be the programmatic scaffolding of the campaign against the Spiro Agnews, John Connallys, and Ronald Rea-gans...
...Worse still, a decision in one election becomes a kind of permanent litmus test that, if correct, guarantees a continuing membership in the society of politically virtuous men, or, if wrong, places forever the Mark of Cain on the person who made the unforgivable choice...
...Moreover, the regulars and the reformers both have need of each other because not only the electoral success of the Democratic party but its viability as well depends upon diversity...
...What is most needed now is a bit of restraint, self-control and perspective...
...They don't see the primary as a vital part of that institution, as the way the party is kept close to its members and its very tissues are renewed...
...Only those who have been involved can understand the intensity of this conflict...
...The only one smiling was the President...
Vol. 56 • February 1973 • No. 4
