-Caveat Lector- Will the Democrats Decide to Get Mad or Get Even? <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/04/weekinreview/04BERK.html?pagewanted=1?ex=982261218&ei=1&en=47b2f6b1585d7fdd> By RICHARD L. BERKE February 4, 2001 WASHINGTON IT is no accident that the first lapel buttons to sell out at a gathering here this weekend of Democratic officials from around the country proclaimed: "Re-elect Al Gore in 2004." Or that Terry McAuliffe, in his pitch to party members to crown him the new Democratic chairman, declared that he was driven to run because "I'm a little outraged about the last election. I'm a little angry." Outside Washington, people are more than a little angry. Veteran Democratic organizers say they have not seen such vehemence against a Republican president since at least Richard M. Nixon. Hard-core Democratic activists are seething. They screamed (some even cried) at the inauguration out of sheer frustration, and they believe President Bush stole the presidency. They will never view him as legitimate. "Conservatives have been the road-rage crowd, and liberals tend to work things out," said Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, a liberal research group. "This time, the liberals are enraged. You'll see people erupting in ways that they wouldn't normally." If anything, they grew angrier still when the man with no mandate (in their view) nominated the deeply conservative John Ashcroft as attorney general and Gale A. Norton to head the Interior Department both confirmed last week and moved to restrict abortion. In fact, said Senator Paul Wellstone, a liberal from Minnesota, "The intensity of the opposition to Ashcroft was based directly on Florida, no question about it." This fury can be hard to detect in Washington, where, Mr. Ashcroft aside, every day brings more images of cheery Democrats embracing Mr. Bush (literally and figuratively), of the Kennedys trooping to the White House to watch a movie in the family theater or of Mr. Bush crashing Democratic caucus retreats, to the evident delight of all present. Out in the country, too, most Democrats have seemed to have moved on. Philip Clapp, who heads the National Environmental Trust, said that he recently spent eight hours observing focus groups of swing voters in Seattle and Sioux Falls, S.D. Though the conversations were about the new president, Mr. Clapp said no one mentioned the election debacle not once. But not everyone is over it. A small, fervent faction from the Democratic Party's most liberal constituencies is deeply angered. Polls and anecdotal evidence suggest this feeling is centered among African-Americans, who insist that they were discouraged from voting or that their ballots were not counted last November. Their outrage, which can also be found in other core liberal constituencies like labor, abortion rights activists and environmentalists, run so deep that it could potentially move the center of gravity of the entire party. The influence of angry Democrats could be considerable because their numbers almost by definition include some of the party's most committed grass roots organizers. AN obvious outlet for such feeling is electoral reform. Mr. McAuliffe, for one, said in an interview that the party will hold "voter intimidation hearings all over the country." But many Democrats said they will not be content merely to clean up elections. "For those of us of color, this resurrects poll taxes, and how people have been lynched to keep them from voting," said Mayor Dennis Archer of Detroit. His lingering feelings about the election, he said, remind him of "how I felt about the assassination of Martin Luther King." A similar militancy was noted by Amy Isaacs, national director of Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal group, who said, "The last time we couldn't answer our phones fast enough was when Reagan was elected." This fiery partisanship and sense of injustice contrasts starkly with the prevailing attitude on Capitol Hill. Though Democrats here insist they are not timid about taking on the administration, particularly over Supreme Court nominations, the general view seems to be that like it or not, Democrats know they have to work with Republicans to pass legislation to appropriate money for Democratic projects. In finessing the Ashcroft slugfest, Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, tried a strategy of holding firm but not too firm. He showed that Democrats would not back down from a fight, but would resist trying to filibuster the vote and appearing needlessly obstinate. "There's a risk that Democrats who are not sharing the anger and dismay could find themselves disaffected from big pieces of the base of the party," said Tony Podesta, a Democratic strategist. "But if the base of the party is angry with Republicans and working day and night to vindicate through the midterm elections what was taken away from them in the election last year, that could be good for the Democrats." It's a tough juggling act, Mr. Wellstone said. His party must try to show good faith in working with the president, while not entirely accepting his presidency. "It's important not to confuse having face-to-face contact with the president which is good with all is forgotten about Florida and everybody is fine," Mr. Wellstone said. "People my age are saying: 'We fought the voting rights battle and we thought we won. But we didn't.' " Paul Beck, a political scientist at Ohio State University, said the Democrats also need to avoid a post-Florida schism. The Vietnam War was a lesson, he said. "Vietnam left very deep scars in the political world," he said. "And in some ways deeply divided the party." THE danger, Mr. Wellstone said, is if "the sense of betrayal is translated into a politics of bitterness, devoid of issues." The public, he said, "would recoil at that." But if activists become discouraged by Democrats in Washington, finding them too accommodating to Mr. Bush, they could become alienated from traditional party politics. The first half of the last century was dominated by party-centered politics. Then came candidate-centered politics. Now, some foresee an era where the power moves to activists, who create local coalitions around specific issues. That could happen because, with the rise of the Internet, activists have far greater access to communication and organizing tools and no longer have to rely on help from campaigns or party committees. "This could fuel the development of a new era of issue-centered politics, where people are exercising their political views through advocacy groups around issues they care about," said Dan Carol, a Democratic strategist who commutes between offices here and in Eugene, Ore. Specifically, some of the activists fret that the more that Democrats play up to Mr. Bush, they more they will legitimize him as president. Some are also frustrated, already, that Democrats in Washington did not try to defeat the Ashcroft and Norton nominations, whatever the cost. "George Bush barely won, if he won at all," Mr. Carol said. "He shouldn't get every one of his cabinet picks." He described Congressional Democrats as having a "weenie problem," meaning that they are afraid to stand up for themselves. As both Democrats and Republicans cast themselves as centrists, the emergence of these activists could create new problems for the Democrats by yanking the party to the left. It is equally possible, despite all their passion and organizational ingenuity, that the angry activists may find themselves on the fringes of the party. "Bush is activating the Democratic base in a way we never imagined," said Tony Coelho, a former congressman from California and chairman of Mr. Gore's campaign in the primaries. That may be true, but the two major parties have always preferred that their bases follow the leaders, rather than the other way around. So the question is whether these energized Democrats will take their cue from Washington, or take their party in a new direction. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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