Speaking Frankly: What's Wrong with the Democratic Party and How To Fix It

National Review, Feb 17, 1992 by Matthew Scully

This book addresses what Barney Frank takes to be the great question now facing the Democratic Party-why the White House continues to elude it. But the most instructive moment comes in a passing reference to the issue of congressional term limitations, which he dismisses as the desperate ruse of Republicans unable to displace incumbent Democrats by ordeinary means. Herte, as Representatibe Frank ubderstands it, is the heart of the matter:

What the feared "incumbency" factor

comes down to is that voters, having once

selected someone to represent them in a

legislative district, tend strongly to vote

for him or her again two or four years

later, especially if the legislator in question

has been diligent about staying in

touch with those voters.... Why this

should be considered by some as a terrible

thing is baffling-as a legislator I

must be in the only profession in the

would where a high degree of consumer

satisfaction is taken as a sign that something

is radically wring.

Is that not the real problem right there? The folks back home are no longer constituents in need of representation. They're "consumers" in need of satisfaction. And because Mr. Frank has acquired a large enough brood of "consumers" who depend upon his expert troughsmanship in Washington, he assumes he's performing his constitutional duties in exemplary fashion, a proven "professional."

How then, he asks in Speaking Frankly, can we bring the same standard of professionalism to the White House? Through diligent attention to constituent needs, after all, Democrats have long commanded both houses of Congress, most state legislatures, and seldom fewer than thirty governorships. Just what prevents them from possessing the Presidency too?

Well, he explains, in presidential contests things work a little differently. Constituent services and the promise of this or that new program don't count for quite so much. People tend to "voteup." less mindful of their own material interests that of "their favored vision for the nation as a whole." Democrats, in other words, "usually win when the voters are focusing on issues, but Republicans almost always win when voters are concerned with values."

Another man might have paused over that little axiom, wondering just why it is that Democrats tend to win only when people "vote down" with a view to their material interests. Mr. Frank deduces only that, to "fix" the party and thereby gain the White House, the Democrats must discard the competence-over-ideology formula tried last time around in favor of moral "values." In general, "liberals suffer not because of the position we take but because of voter perceptions that our values are wrong."

Reassuring voters of the party's moral values involves, however, this problem: there remains a particularly fractious group of Democrats who simply will not stand for it. These people, whom Mr. Frank terms the "notsapostas" (they're forever reminding other Democrats what a true liberal is "notsaposta" say), must be defied. During the Gulf War, for instance,

I was reminded of the power of the notsapostas

for some when I told one meeting

of peace activists that I thought they

should keep in mind that George Bush

was morally far superior to Saddam Hussein

whatever the disagreements about

politics, That set off a violent outburst

from some of those present....During

some of these meetings, and afterward, a

few told me that they could no longer

vote for me.

To his credit, Mr. Frank stood up to this menacing mob of"notsapostas" in defense of his Commander-in-Chief. Yet the lesson he draws has more to do with what liberals should say than with what they should actually do. Just what kind of people-according to the story, his own avid supporters - react in a violent outburst to an elementary moral distinction? More to the point, what does it say of the party that they now exert the enormous influence Mr. Frank himself acknowledges? To argue that party leaders are not quite as morally confuse as the activists, but have merely been timid in giving ground to such people. hardly makes the lot of them look any more presidential.

Saying the right thing, he goes on to explain, is achieved by affirming those patriotic values dear to traditional Democrats while offending as few "notsapostas" as possible. Thus, he proposes, instead of demanding a "peace dividend" with which to fund more Democratic programs, let's call it America's "victory dividend." The phrase has an "air of triumph"and entitlement, whereas

To many swing voters, supporters of a

peace dividend are part of a movement

that has frequently blamed America

for many of the ills in the world, has

reduced the role of our military, and

may be very naive about the need for

us to use force in the defense of our legitimate

interests.

As so often with the "misperception" defense, Mr. Frank here reveals a pretty low opinion of those traditional Democrats he's aiming to please. Are they really so superficial as to be won back with a turn of phrase? He himself, elsewhere in Speaking Frankly, criticizes fellow liberals for supposing that those stubborn voters who insisted on voting for Reagan and Bush merely need, in 1992, to be "educated on the issues" (one of the bool's more sensible points). But that's better than trying to lure them back by flatter. hailing the noble taxpayer for his triumph in the cold war before proceeding to the ceremonial fleecing.