Democrats slogan for 2006: “_________”

Mort Kondracke writes that the Democrats are going to try to re-create the 1994 Gingrich revolution by offering up a positive agenda right before the 2006 midterms: “Democrats do plan to ‘go positive’ – but not until 2006”:

House and Senate Democrats are delighted with the apparent defeat of Bush's Social Security "privatization" plan - the political equivalent, they think, of the Clinton 1994 health debacle - and Senate Democrats are planning to replicate the tactics and structure of that campaign on other issues for 2006.

This is both pretzel logic and wishful thinking. The Clinton health care plan involved a government restructuring of one-sixth of the entire U.S. economy. Cooked up in secret meetings, the public worried about whether the proposal would make things worse and it was defeated in a Democrat-controlled Congress.

How the Democrats will engineer the 1994 scenario with Social Security escapes me. Most Americans know that the current system is unsustainable, especially workers under 40 who will almost certainly see a portion of their Social Security benefit shrink. In 1994, Republicans said: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In 2006, the Democrats are going to flip that into “it is broke, let’s not fix it.” This is not a blueprint, or even a scribbled napkin, for victory.

Oh, and I don’t believe for a nanosecond that the Democrats will emerge with a new “Contract with America” a month before the midterms. It’s almost bizarre how an American political party can be so paralyzed by special interests that it can’t formulate a coherent position on any topic:

[Democratic pollster Stan] Greenberg and other Democratic campaign strategists have complained for months that their party's leaders, Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and their leading presidential contenders have been unable to reach a unifying party consensus on a campaign agenda.

After crunching exhaustive voter preference numbers, Mr. Greenberg is telling party leaders that the present "Democratic margin reflects Republican slippage but no subsequent gains for Democrats, who have not yet defined themselves or what changes they would bring."

A lot of bloggers on the Left are salivating over the string of GOP scandals, but mark well these words by Kevin Drum:

I've long been of the opinion that although Democrats are obviously in trouble these days, it's still the case that they're losing elections by only a few points — and even a moderate change in the political climate could turn that around. Well, this is it. If Democrats still can't win in 2006, then we've got serious problems.

Political parties exist to represent an ideology; a road map of government for the public to decide upon. Aside from chronic Bush-hatred, the Democrats don’t seem to have one. Furthermore, if they think opposition to Social Security reform presents the image that they’re fighting for working Americans, they’re even more deluded than I thought. From Howard Dean on down, the Democrats have serious problems indeed.

Follow-up – Mark Kilmer concurs: “The Dems are coughing up blood, running on fumes which double as hot air. They are leaderless and agendaless, powerless to do much more than throw little rocks at Tom DeLay and have their buddies in the press write about how awful the Republicans must be feeling.” Yeah, it sucks being in charge of every branch of the government. Try winning an election.