Allan Lichtman

The Democratic Party needs to establish principled opposition to the policies of their Republican opposition. With his energy, courage, and prominence in the public eye, new party Chair Howard Dean is an indispensable Democratic voice. But he needs to make the failings of the opposition, not himself the issue, challenging the leadership and programs of the Republican Party, not their rank and file followers. As Napoleon said, “never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

Instead of Dean’s saying that many Republicans “have never made an honest living in their lives,” Dean and fellow Democrats should be skewering the Republican leadership for policies that that grievously injure working and middle-class Americans at the behest of their corporate clients.
The Democrats should be exposing a bankruptcy bill, dictated by the credit card industry that denies the protection of the law to millions of faultless Americans facing financial distress through catastrophic medical costs and other circumstances beyond their personal control.

The Democrats should assail the fraud of tort reform, pushed by the insurance industry, which denies ordinary Americans their Seventh Amendment rights to a trial by jury in civil cases. They should our Seventh Amendment rights to a jury trial, with the same vigor that we defend our First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly.

Democrats should focus on Republican tax policies that benefit the few at the expense of the many. A case is point is the attempt to repeal for all time the estate tax. Republican proposals do not protect family farms and businesses, already covered under present law, but deliver a windfall to the very richest Americans while socking ordinary taxpayers with a bill of more than $700 billion over a ten year span.

Instead of assailing Republicans, in Dean’s words, for belong to a “white Christian party,” Dean and the Democrats should pounce on the president and Republicans in Congress for repressive, intrusive policies that dishonor morality for political gain. What repulsed so many Americans, including most devout Christians, about Republican intrusion into the tragedy of Terri Schiavo was that in pursuit of partisan ends they buried our traditions of honoring and respecting the dignity and right of individuals and families to freely choose their own destiny.

History teaches that whichever party holds the moral high ground takes command of politics in the United States. Democrats have a golden opportunity to retake this high ground from Republicans, defending America’s proud moral traditions of individual liberty, family decision-making, and the right of people to be free of government intruding into their personal lives.

Dean and the Democrats need to seize a few signature issues and make them their own. In the 2004 president debate on domestic issues Democratic nominee John Kerry said not one word about the environmental and energy policies. Democrats have failed to expose the president and his Republican allies for foisting on the country energy policies that indefinitely shackle us to fossil fuels and big energy companies.

The Democrats should launch a principled critique of policies threaten our precious natural heritage, put the planet at risk from catastrophic climate change, make our national security dependent on a few shaky authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, and push us to fight wars for oil in the Middle East. And they need alternative policies to free America from its dead end fossil fuel dependence.

In his early days as party chair, Dean got it right when he cautioned Democrat candidates to take a “high road” approach that avoids running a “scorched earth campaign.” Taking the high road doesn’t mean shrinking from challenging the opposition. It does mean, however, principled attacks on policies and programs, not personal attacks on Republicans that boomerang against the Democrats.

A version of this post appeared in The Washington Examiner on July 6, 2005