POLITICO
Third Way looks to play a central role as the Democratic Party comes to a 'major fork in the road.'
The long-simmering battle between moderates and liberals for the soul of the Democratic Party is about to explode.
That presents a golden opportunity for Third Way, a five-year-old think tank that remains largely unknown outside the Beltway.
The group has spent months preparing to capitalize on this moment and take a more central role in the party.
And it’s coming down squarely on the side of centrism — and planning to vigorously challenge the left.
“The party is about to come to a major fork in the road,” said Jonathan Cowan, Third Way’s president. “A left turn at this juncture is a turn toward permanent minority status.”
The group’s efforts reflect the underlying tension President Barack Obama faces as he heads into the last two years of his first term. Liberals say there’s an enthusiasm gap with Republicans because Democrats are disappointed that the party was too timid about the size of the stimulus, compromised on the public option in health care reform and ran away from its accomplishments. Those closer to the middle say a more moderate face for the party is the only hope to win back independents, reelect Obama and retake the House in 2012, assuming it is lost Tuesday.
Cowan’s group wants to play a role in 2011 akin to the Democratic Leadership Council’s in 1995. Then, the last time Democrats lost the House, President Bill Clinton’s willingness to “triangulate” between traditional Democratic orthodoxies and the Republicans who controlled Congress led to welfare reform, community policing and a slew of smaller accomplishments that helped propel Clinton to a second term.
Third Way, with a staff of 35 and a $7 million budget for next year, has filled a vacuum left by the DLC’s loss of influence in the wake of founder Al From’s 2009 departure.
Third Way remains small compared with the Center for American Progress, the left’s most powerful think tank and the one most plugged into the White House. For context, CAP gets around $30 million a year in revenue and employs nearly 300 people.
Capitalizing on Hill turnover that will make high-level talent available, Third Way plans to hire several new employees.
The group is commissioning a post-election poll, to go into the field Wednesday, which will explore why people who voted to elect Obama president in 2008 either backed Republicans or stayed home Tuesday. A sample of 500 “flippers” and 500 “droppers” will be questioned about what they want to see from Democrats going forward. The results are due next week.
In addition, the group’s fellows and policy advisers will start rolling out memos and studies that offer a framework for how Democrats could reach common ground with Republicans. The economic team is developing a proposal that it thinks could win bipartisan support. It includes tort reform and incentives for research and development. And Cowan’s writing a paper with a colleague about “the danger of left-wing economic populism.”
With cap and trade effectively dead in a Republican House, Third Way will release a “Plan B” for energy reform. On Dec. 7, it’s hosting a summit on nuclear energy — one of the group’s big causes — with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Obama energy czar Carol Browner.
It will come out with a paper on the need for changes that could save Social Security, which it presents as a direct challenge to economist Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist who has said Obama didn’t go far enough with the stimulus and other programs.
And the group will advocate for education reform that focuses on middle-class, not low-income, schools. Third Way is also pushing for more trade agreements and a new approach to immigration.
The biggest challenge facing the ambitious group: It’s not completely clear there will be an appetite from the left or the right for what it has to offer.
Republicans will probably be unwilling to cooperate on most of the group’s issues. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in a recent interview that he sees his most important job as getting a Republican elected president in 2012. Would-be Speaker John Boehner must manage tea partiers who want bold moves, not compromise.
Third Way quickly built up its influence by working with moderate congressional Democrats. Two other cofounders, Jim Kessler and Matt Bennett, became close with several freshman and sophomore Democrats by offering messaging advice on everything from health care to national security at regular briefings organized by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
In addition, many of Third Way’s most sympathetic Democratic allies now appear likely to lose. Of 255 House Democrats, 102 are members of the Blue Dog or New Democrat caucuses. Only 38 of those running for reelection face non-competitive reelections, according to the latest issue of a monthly newsletter analyst Bill Schneider writes for Third Way (where he is a resident scholar).
Because of the reddish districts the new members represent, the moderates will suffer the heaviest losses. This means the Democratic caucus in the next Congress will be more liberal on the whole and thus potentially more leery of a third-way philosophy.
“A big tent is great but not just for the sake of having a big tent,” said Ari Berman, a contributing writer for The Nation and the author of “Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics.”
“What I don’t understand is: why is Third Way expending all this energy justifying people who are consistently voting against Obama’s agenda?” he said in an interview. “It seems to me like they’re using Democratic defeats as an excuse to once again blame the liberals, which happens pretty much every single time the Democrats lose.”
Bennett, the group’s vice president, rejects the criticism. “These two years do not have to be wasted, regardless of who is running Congress,” he said. “But if we follow the advice of folks who are counseling a return to the bunkers, then absolutely nothing will happen.”
The Third hird Way is helped by a few key relationships. Kessler was a longtime senior aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who could become majority leader if Harry Reid loses in Nevada. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who could become minority leader if Republicans take over the House, is one of many strong sympathizers. The senators they helped in 2006 and 2008 will still be around.
“We’re going to have to look at what we did wrong and figure out where we lost our way with independents and swing voters,” said an aide to a senior congressional Democrat. “Third Way — that is their wheelhouse.”
Regardless, 2011 is not 1995. Obama tacking to the center will be much easier said than done. Clinton had been chairman of the DLC before he ran for president. Third Way embraces Obama as one of them, a pragmatist eager to accomplish big things but willing to compromise to get results, but he won his party’s nomination largely by transcending the “new” vs. “old” Democrat debate. And he has no personal ties to the group.
Third Way’s leaders argue that the president and congressional leaders recognize moderates matter more than ever.“I believe Barack Obama is a believer in the art of the possible,” said Bennett, who served as the Clinton administration’s principal liaison to governors. “That is how he has lived his life. He believes not in compromising principle but in finding solutions even when the politics of a situation are changed.”
To be sure, there are other groups advocating center-left views. The Progressive Policy Institute, which spun off from the DLC, remains in the research and education field under Will Marshall. Simon Rosenberg, a former DLC field director, runs the NDN, previously known as the New Democrat Network.
While it’s not what it once was, the DLC hasn’t disappeared. They won’t disclose their budget, except to say they employ 15 people (including part-time fellows). Bruce Reed, who succeeded From as leader of the DLC before taking a leave of absence to become executive director of the president’s fiscal commission, will return in December.
“They have talented people, there’s no doubt about that, but I don’t think there’s a replacement really for original policy work,” DLC President Ed Gresser said of Third Way. “I think they do some, but what I see of their work is sort of political memos, ‘Here’s how you should talk about such and such an issue.’ Those are valuable, but they’re not setting an agenda.”
Brookings’ William Galston and Harvard’s Elaine Kamarck wrote the seminal studies that helped launch the DLC. Third Way is now paying the duo to complete a study about what moderates believe and what they want from Democrats. Both praise Third Way for filling a niche that’s otherwise unfilled.
“There’s no question,” Galston said, “about the fact that the DLC is not what it was and that Third Way, as sort of an operational entity, has filled some of the void opened by the downsizing of the DLC and its shift to a more modest and less visible mission.”
No comments:
Post a Comment