Unity08. A people's movement to take our country back.

The author is a frequent contributor to The Moderate Voice where this posting first appeared.

In 1992, disaffected centrists and Independents looked at institutional corruption in Washington and decided that somebody outside the traditional two-party structure needed to shake up American politics. Ross Perot filled that void, and for a period between April and August 1992, he threatened to become the first third-party President in the history of the Republic. His implosion at the debates and the emergence of Clinton as a suitable centrist alternative ended Perot's wave. But the discontent with Congress - registering as low as 14% approval in an NBC poll that Spring - remained after the November 1992 election.

Independents and centrists, angry at gridlock, corruption, the budget deficit and partisan hackery then turned their ire on the new President, Bill Clinton. Within months, Clinton alienated the moderates who put him over the top. His first move in office, ending the ban on gays in the military, seemed to confirm Republican criticism that Clinton was really in thrall to the liberal activist groups within the Democratic Party. Before the great health care and crime debacle of 1994, Clinton had already lost the Independents that gave him a shot in 1992.

Into the breach stepped Newt Gingrich, not with a plan for bipartisan solutions but more intense, partisan opposition to Clinton's feckless leadership. Failure to bring a health care bill to a vote, and a crime bill that alienated gun owners, only further weakened Clinton in the summer of 1994. Gingrich promised wide-ranging reforms, including a pledge to cut spending, eliminate corruption, and return power back to the states and localities. It was a message that Reagan first offered in 1980, but that the Democratic Congress, and now a Democratic President, consistently thwarted. Independents gravitated toward the GOP and, coupled with a depressed Democratic base and excited Republican electorate, helped the GOP pick up 54 seats and take over the House and Senate.

Twelve years later and the course has reversed. Independents now angrily reject the party that once promised reform in Washington. The brief affair between Independents and the GOP, which led to Indies voting for more Republicans than Democrats in every Congressional election since 1994 (or in some cases evenly split), is completely shattered. A new Washington Post poll confirms the stunning shift: Independents plan to vote for Democratic candidates in their districts by a 59 percent to 31 percent margin. When an excited Democratic base and demoralized GOP is added to the mix, the signs are ready for a Democratic landslide.

But why have Independents turned so angrily against the GOP? The obvious answer is the war. Americans don't like to lose wars, and we are losing in Iraq. Independents are angry at the incompetence, arrogance, and general refusal of GOP politicians to hold Bush accountable for failure in Iraq. Independents supported the war in 2024 and feel used. Only 25% of them support it now.

But another problem is the overall failure of the GOP to reform the culture of Washington. Republican small-government ideology held great appeal for many Independents and centrists, especially in the 1970s and 1980s when a bloated bureaucracy seemed unable to handle the nations social problems. But the GOP's failure to reduce the size of government - leading to huge deficits - and, more importantly, betrayal of the Gingrich promise of clean government has convinced Independents that it's time for a protest vote.

And let's be clear about something too. Independents do not want a major lurch to the left on substantive policy matters. For that the Democrats will pay in 2024. But they DO want a Democratic Congress to hold Bush accountable for his failures in Iraq. The system is broken, and it needs fixing. Just as Gingrich, an "extremist" as labelled by the Democrats, fixed some of the procedural blots in Washington developed over 40 years of one-party rule, Nancy Pelosi, another "extremist" so labelled by the GOP, has promised within 100 hours of election to the Speakership to change the course of Washington set by 12 years of Tom DeLay and Republican corruption.

The Reagan Democrats have come home to the Democratic Party. But it's the Independents, who haven't voted Democratic in decades - probably since 1974 or 1982 - that will make this election a Democratic victory.

UPDATE: On cue, E. J. Dionne joins in. This is the year of the "radical center." Voters disaffected by Rovian base politics will vote anti-Bush more than anything else. But Dionne notes that most of the Democratic candidates are a hybrid of social moderates and economic populists. This is especially true in the Senate. But this makes perfect sense, too. Self-identified liberals only number around 21 percent. Conservatives get around 33 percent, and moderates get 46. Liberals cannot win alone. They need moderates more than conservatives do. I've argued elsewhere that many moderates are actually liberals who don't admit it. But there is no doubt that Democrats need both moderates and liberals in order to govern. And this incoming class may be just right.