Howard Dean's Do Nothing Plan

On yesterday's Meet the Press, Democratic chief Howard Dean laid out the party's strategy for fixing Social Security. Tim Russert called it the "No Plan Strategy," where the Democrats just don't come up with a plan. The argument for this strategy is that it worked for the Republicans in 1994. The Clintons came up with a proposal for health care reform, and the Republicans just let them run with it and tie their own noose. I call this the "Let the Other Guy Shoot Himself" strategy.

The problem is the analysis of 1994 is incomplete. Did the Repubican run start with the Clintons shooting themselves and their party in the foot? Certainly. But once the Democrats were wounded, the Republicans came up with the Contract On For America, a vision of what the Republicans stood for and what Republican governance would look like. Whether one likes their view or not, the Republicans were offering a portrait of what they believed and what they would do once in power.

The Democrats cannot just sit around with no idea of who they are. This was the strategy in the 2004 presidential election: vote for Kerry because he's not Bush. We don't really know who he is, but we are certain he's not Bush. Where did that strategy get them? A Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008.

The Democratic party needs to stop simply criticizing whatever Bush is doing, and start coming up with a clue of who they are and what they stand for. They need to start understanding mainstream America. (Just read the condescension in the New York Times comments on the NASCAR culture. As a Glenn Reynolds reader says, "Replace 'NASCAR' with 'Hip-hop,' and then ask yourself whether this would have run in the Times.") They need to find a way to articulate their new-found vision to mainstream America. Simply saying privatization is a bad idea is not enough.