TigerHawk

TigerHawk (ti*ger*hawk): n. 1. The title of this blog and the nom de plume of its founding blogger; 2. A deep bow to the Princeton Tigers and the Iowa Hawkeyes; 3. The nickname for Iowa's Hawkeye logo. Posts include thoughts of the day on international affairs, politics, things that strike us as hilarious and personal observations. The opinions we express are our own, and not those of each other, our employers, our relatives, our dead ancestors, or unrelated people of similar ethnicity.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Democratic Party Civil War

By Cardinalpark at 2/01/2006 08:36:00 AM

It was in Chicago in 1968 that the Democratic Party came unglued. LBJ decided not to run early in the primaries. RFK was assassinated during the California primary in June. And the convention was plagued by rioting antiwar demonstrators. Then, as now, the Democratic Party was torn asunder by a split in its ranks around questions of foreign policy, the Cold War, Containment and Vietnam. A coalition of communists, pacifists, antiVietnamists, draft avoiders and other flotsam and jetsam opened the door to Richard Nixon to take the White House against Hubert Humphrey. Eugene McCarthy ran strongly enough as an antiwar independent to drain votes from Humphrey and faciliate a Nixon win. The Democratic Party of FDR and Truman, which had won WWII, dropped the A bomb and authored containment was launched into the foreign policy wilderness in 1968 - and still hasn't emerged. It led most pathetically to the nomination of George McGovern in 1972, whom Nixon routed, with his "come home America" defeatism.

2008 may be shaping up, even this early, to have a similar split. There is the Dean/Pelosi Wing, which is definitive in its antiwar, "terrorism as law enforcement problem" stance. There is the Clinton, Kerry, Biden wing, which is anything but definitive (about anything). They do this for good reason, by the way -- they'd like to win an election. And there is Lieberman (not really a wing) who is clear in his aggressive antiterror, prowar stance. I hold out some hope that the dissemblers in the middle would "rule" differently than they campaign, but it's not at all clear who they're trying to fool - the left or the middle. And this is just talking about foreign policy. We haven't even gotten to the little filiflopper Alito thing, which caused a little Demotempest.

The Donkeys (Asses?) have their work cut out for them. They lack unity, they lack leadership and they lack a politician of Clinton's skill and charisma to convince them to vote against their passions. Funnily enough, the only guys in the whole crowd (including elephants) who seem to have "it" are Giuliani and McCain.

Hence the title of this little prediction - I think I see a Democratic Party civil war in the future.

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7 Comments:

By TigerHawk, at Wed Feb 01, 09:40:00 AM:

I agree -- it is going to be ugly. Hilarious, but ugly.

By cakreiz, at Wed Feb 01, 09:43:00 AM:

I remember the '68 Chicago convention coverage well; I was 16 at the time. But I disagree with your prediction of an upcoming Dem civil war. Most Lieberman-like liberal hawks are no longer party activists- they've long since departed. DLC Clintonians remain queasy, at best, with military might. They'll cave to the strong pacifist wing. So I don't see deep rifts with those remaining in the Party.

By Anonymous, at Wed Feb 01, 10:29:00 AM:

In your analysis, you failed to mention George Wallace, who finally broke the Dixiecrat coalition wing away from the Dems (since the days of FDR and 1932), mainly over the outcomes (but not necessarily the laws themselves) of the Civil rights act.
Wallace broke enough votes away (and Eugene McCarthy was ineffective after the Convention) to give Nixon a plurality.
I think the best analogy would be that Eugene McCarthy = Howard Dean, and the fate of the Democratic Party in consequence of this.

1968 was a very ugly year. I hope we never see the like of it again.
-David

By Cardinalpark, at Wed Feb 01, 02:09:00 PM:

Anon- thanks for your elaboration on George Wallace. I was frankly much less aware of him in 1968.

2008 should be far less ugly because we have made very clear and quantifiable gains in the war on islamofascism. The new vector is likely to be Iran. Vietnam in 1968 was a very troubled 4 year old war that had just expanded materially (and was reported to be in the loss column). And the President who had expanded our commitment there was running away from the job.

That absence of leadership and will, coupled with the societal division at hand over the war and civil rights, rightly made 1968 a disaster.

By cakreiz, at Wed Feb 01, 03:41:00 PM:

There's no doubt that the modern political atmosphere was shaped in 1968. Until then, the Dems were heavily influenced by bosses such as Chicago's Mayor Dailey (although the primary system had begun to erode their influence.) The post-1968 rules changes turned the Party into a constituency-driven party. By 1972, Jesse Jackson led the Illinois delegation and upstart George McGovern won the nomination. The anti-war faction remains a stronghold of the Party.

On the GOP side, Nixon crafted the so-called "Southern Strategy", an opportunistic bid arising out of the South's dissatisfaction with LBJ's 64 Civil Rights legislation, also evidenced by Wallace's candidacy. Most southern pols were Dems; today, the opposite is true. Today's political landscape was defined and molded by the events of 68.

By Charlottesvillain, at Wed Feb 01, 03:55:00 PM:

Yeah, cakreiz, I'd Mayor Daley's influence on the left waned considerably after he broke up their little party with billy clubs and attack dogs.

By cakreiz, at Wed Feb 01, 04:25:00 PM:

Just a tad... some people just can't let go of the past!