Clearing Up the Myth of 1994's Contract With America

So there is this ongoing, either/or, and most importantly FALSE debate going on in Democratic and progressives circles as to whether Democrats should be "for" something or run a "Seinfeld strategy" and essentially be "about nothing" like that old TV show since Bush and the Republicans are imploding.

False choice folks! Really. The fact is that Democrats running for the House and the Senate should run on a positive and progressive agenda, but they should do it by offering up big ideas in their own voice on the appropriate issues that resonate in their district not mimicking the 1994 Gingrich myth.

Yes it's tempting for Democrats to trot out and do their own Contract with America when the national press is lambasting the party every other day and influential analysts like the LA Times' Susan Estrich (she was the Dukakis campaign manager) and former DLC and Clinton policy director Bruce Reed are sounding the call.

But just because voters are sick of Bush and get that they are in a "bad marriage" with Republicans doesn't mean they want to rush back to their "first" marriage (that would be the Democrats). Voters think both political parties are lame.

What seems to be driving a good deal of this demand for a big/national Democratic message is the myth about 1994. Democratic insiders who want to nationalize our message keep citing the 1994 Republican Contract with America as the reason that Republicans won the House back and turned 60 seats.

To which I say: Not so. Not so. Not so.

The fact is that most voters had not heard of the Contract at the time they voted. They just thought Clinton was lame on health care and gays in the military and weren't giving him credit (yet) for turning around the economy. Check this out: "Republicans were largely successful because of what they were not (Democrats), not what they were for.... The fact is that very few voters were even aware of this contract during the election: just 31 percent had heard of the Contract in a late October NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll."

Or try this. "Twelve years after the Contract With America and the staggering GOP sweep, architects of the storied manifesto concede it played a more mythical than material role in victory".

Don't believe me or these links? HuffPo's Lawrence O'Donnell said the same thing last week in reflecting on how all the Republican congressional TV ads in 1994 didn't talk about the contract, but morphed Democratic Congressional faces into Bill Clinton. My man Larry thinks it's nutty for Democrats to have a grand, national message.

How about another key Republican's memory from 1994? Jeff Feehery, a former House Majority aide to Bob Michel and New Gingrich (who is now a senior official at the Motion Picture Association of America) was on a C-Span panel recently and basically opined that the Contract didn't win Republicans the election, but admitted that they used the September 27th Contract release to claim a broad "mandate" for its ten points right after the election.

So I am not saying that Nancy Pelosi or the Daily Kos or some amalgam of Democrats shouldn't make up a Democratic platform. Or issue it publicly. Go ahead and do that, feel free. Rock on, brothers and sisters. Fill that void and here is a first cut at that.

I am just saying, that we shouldn't run on a National We Can Do Better Together Set of Comprehensive Democratic Party Answers as our take back the House strategy. Save this big "what we are for" document for claiming a mandate on November 8, 2006.

What's the secret strategic sauce beyond that to get subpoena power in 2007? I ain't posting target races and specific ideas here on the Internet. No way, no how. But more soon -- at a secret location where we will finally integrate the power of the Netroots, some smart targeting strategy, and some decent message making and delivery strategies all in one sweet spot.