E. J. Dionne Jr. asks: Are Washington Dems prepared to learn the lesson of Wisconsin?

AP caption: "Police carried dozens of protesters from a hallway leading to the Wisconsin Assembly on Thursday as Democratic representatives pounded on the locked door of the chamber, demanding to be let in to the room. (March 10)" (See Howie's post earlier today, "Right-Wing Coup In Wisconsin.")

"Here's the key to the Wisconsin battle: For the first time in a long time, blue-collar Republicans -- once known as Reagan Democrats -- have been encouraged to remember what they think is wrong with conservative ideology. Working-class voters, including many Republicans, want no part of Walker's war."

-- E. J. Dionne Jr., in his WaPo column today, "What
Wisconsin Democrats can teach Washington Democrats"

by Ken

I know it was just last night that I managed to include E. J. Dionne Jr. in a short list of reality-grounded Washington Post columnists (along with Harold Meyerson and Gene Robinson -- as I wrote, I know I must be forgetting somebody, but I still can't think who), standing their ground against the gathering force of fake-centrist right-wing twittery that has secured pretty much of a stranglehold on a newspaper that once at least aspired to be something better.

Still, it was just a mention. You have to go all the way back to January 18 for an occasion on which I noted properly how much I love the guy. It's just about impossible to shake him out of his ingrained habit of observing the world carefully from a background of wide and deep knowledge and understanding, and then speaking plain truths in his quiet, unfailingly modest and reasonable tone.

Here's how E.J. starts today's column:

Consider the contrast between two groups of Democrats, in Wisconsin and in the nation's capital.

Washington Democrats, including President Obama, have allowed conservative Republicans to dominate the budget debate so far. As long as the argument is over who will cut more from federal spending, conservatives win. Voters may think the GOP is going too far, but when it comes to dollar amounts, they know Republicans will always cut more.

In Wisconsin, by contrast, 14 Democrats in the state Senate defined the political argument on their own terms - and they are winning it.

By leaving Madison rather than providing a quorum to pass Gov. Scott Walker's assault on collective bargaining for public employees, the Wisconsin 14 took a big risk. Yet to the surprise of establishment politicians, voters have sided with the itinerant senators and the unions against a Republican governor who has been successfully portrayed as an inflexible ideologue. And in using questionable tactics to force the antiunion provision through the Senate on Wednesday, Republicans may win a procedural round but lose further ground in public opinion.

Then E.J. serves up the cool insight I've quoted at the top of this post. He cites the recent Pew survey ("More Side with Wisconsin Unions than Governor"), then adds:

At my request, Pew broke the numbers down by education and income and, sure enough, Walker won support from fewer than half of Republicans in two overlapping groups: those with incomes under $50,000 and those who did not attend college. Walker's strongest support came from the wealthier and those with college educations, i.e., country club Republicans.

Republicans, E.J. points out, "cannot afford to hemorrhage blue-collar voters," and recalls what he calls "a seminal article" six years ago in The Weekly Standard by Reihan Salam and the ineffable Ross Douchebag which wrote:

This is the Republican Party of today - an increasingly working-class party, dependent for its power on supermajorities of the white working-class vote, and a party whose constituents are surprisingly comfortable with bad-but-popular liberal ideas like raising the minimum wage, expanding clumsy environmental regulations, or hiking taxes on the wealthy to fund a health care entitlement.

"Put aside that I favor the policies Douthat and Salam criticize," E.J. writes. "Their electoral point is dead on."

In 2010, working-class whites gave Republicans a 30-point lead over Democrats in House races. That's why the Wisconsin fight is so dangerous to the conservative cause: Many working-class Republicans still have warm feelings toward unions, and Walker has contrived to remind them of this.

"Which brings us to the Washington Democrats," E..J. writes. The closest they've come to taking a stand has been indicating ever so timorously that they would really prefer that budget cuts be not quite so draconian as what criminally insane congressional Republicans have been trying to shove down our throats. Congressional Dems, in allowing the Republican marauders to totally define the terms of the debate, and focus, as Sen. Chuck Schumer actually pointed out, on "one tiny portion of the budget," meaning ignoring most of the actual sources of our ongoing deficit problems and, as E.J. points out, not dealing with revenue sources at all.

E.J.'s conclusion seems to me beyond argument:

To this point, Washington Democrats have been too afraid and divided to engage compellingly on the fundamentals of what government is there to do and how the burdens of deficit reduction should be apportioned. Wisconsin Democrats have shown that the only way to win arguments is to take risks on behalf of what you believe. Are Washington Democrats prepared to learn this lesson?

Excellent question, E.J. Are Washington Democrats prepared to learn this lesson? You'd think that simply on the level of self-preservation, which often seems to be the only way in which most Beltway Dems are willing or able to look at any issue before them, they would see this lesson as their only possible salvation. Until some sense can be restored to the national discourse, there's not much hope that those pathetic souls can save their mangy hides by pretending to be Republicans. The Republicans, after all, don't have to pretend.

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