Battle For White House Gets Serious

Last night's vote represents only the first great move in the great game for control of the White House in 2009.

For the first four years after 9/11, Republicans enjoyed a huge advantage over Democrats on the only issue that mattered: national security. In the first post-9/11 shock, Americans gave Republicans an almost 30-point lead when polled on the question, "Which party will do a better job on national security?"

The mishandling of Iraq destroyed that advantage. And over the past year, the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate did an outstanding job recruiting candidates with credibility on security issues:

For the Virginia Senate seat, they nominated Ronald Reagan's former secretary of the navy, Jim Webb. Webb served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, winning more combat decorations than any other member of his U.S. Naval Academy class. Webb's son has just shipped out to Iraq with the Marines himself.

This may be one of the most hilariously ironic races in the country. National Democrats are slamming the incumbent Republican senator George Allen for his fondness for Confederate memorabilia. Yet their candidate Webb genuinely is what Allen merely pretends to be: His great-great-grandfather rode with Nathan Bedford Forrest's murderous cavalry; Webb, who has often spoken eloquently in praise of the southern soldiery, named his own son after Robert E. Lee. Talk about your red-state appeal!

Democrats have actually nominated more Iraq war veterans to Congress than have Republicans, including Tammy Duckworth, who is running in Illinois's 6th congressional district. Duckworth, who co-piloted a helicopter in Iraq, lost both her legs in a midair grenade attack.

The Democrats hoped that the military biographies on their roster would not only win Congress, but actually change the dynamics of the national security debate in their favour.

But the hard part of that task starts now.

Democrats have historically again and again failed to understand the nature of the Republican advantage on national security. It is not just a matter of personal service. In that dimension, John Kerry and Al Gore both excelled George Bush, to no avail--never mind the failed presidential candidacies of John Glenn (Korea, the space program), George McGovern (30 intensely dangerous bombing missions over Germany), or, for that matter, Winfield Scott Hancock, the great hero of Gettsyburg, defeated by the GOP in 1880.

The Republicans owe their advantage on national security not merely to what their candidates did on the battlefield, important though that always is, but to the ability of the party to express and champion American nationalism. And that is a task at which Democrats have seldom succeeded.

Now Democrats have gained another chance. They are likely to exercise some legislative power for the first time since 1994. They will wield the gavels and hold the microphone. What will they say? Will they find words to express determination to win the war on terror? Or will they express doubt, reservation, and weakness? Will they persuade the public that they too truly in their heart of hearts want to take the fight on Islamic extremism to the enemy? Or will they use their new power to demand negotiations with Iran and a hasty exit from Iraq?

Where will they stand on the surveillance of terrorists, on the protection of America's borders, on rebutting the slurs and falsehoods hurled at the United States from critics in the Middle East and false friends in Europe?

Will Democrats, in other words, find the inner strength to break away from their old well-earned image of weakness? Or will they espouse that same weakness but with better resumes?

The Bush administration will of course lurk to trap them. Politics is a game with multiple players. And much of the energy and cunning of the Republican party over the next two years will be devoted to thrusting on the Democrats decisions and votes intended to split the more hawkish class of 2006 away from the more traditional liberals in the safe blue-state seats.

In 2004, for example, House Republicans introduced a resolution urging the administration to use "all appropriate means" to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb. That non-binding resolution passed the House with only three dissenting votes. The Republicans will spread many (and more subtle) versions of that same trap out for Democrats in the 24 months ahead.

Democrats will resent these manoeuvres bitterly. But they will find themselves again and again confronted by the hard reality that over the long run the only way to seem tough on defence is to be tough on defence.

All the jockeying and elbowing and eyeball-gouging to come over the next two years will be directed toward establishing bragging rights on this one great issue.

If the empowered Democrats succumb to their instincts to go the way of Michael Moore and MoveOn.org and Daily Kos, well then this will be the shortest-lived congressional victory since the Republicans' suicidal two-year ascendancy in 1947-49. But if they are smart enough and tough enough to break from their past bad instincts and give the Republicans a real tussle on the national security issue, then America's friends and foes abroad will be startled to discover that what happened last night was a sharp move toward the Democratic party--without any move at all to the political or ideological left.