Self-destruction
Sometimes Democratic politicians must just hate their party.
Look at the hearings on US Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. All but the most liberal Democratic senators understand that the smart thing to do is to confirm him as quickly as possible.
Every day spent debating the Alito nomination is a day spent debating abortion, same-sex marriage, and racial preferences - issues on which Democrats lose.
Every day spent debating the Alito nomination is a day spent not debating gasoline prices and the war in Iraq - issues on which Democrats can win.
The logical political conclusion is that Democrats should put the nomination behind them as rapidly as possible. The trouble is that the DemocratsÕ increasingly radical donor base will not allow the party to do what is logical.
Unlike the Republicans - who raise their money in millions of small donations - the Democrats rely on big contributors. The Center for Responsive Politics (a non-partisan think tank in Washington, DC) last year released a detailed analysis of political giving in the 2002 election cycle.
The study found that Republicans raised $68 million from donors who gave less than $1,000. Democrats raised only $44 million from this group.
But Democrats raised twice as much as Republicans among the very biggest donors. The Democrats raised $72 million from donors who gave $100,000 or more. Republicans raised only $34 million from these large donors.
Who is giving the Democrats all this big money? The short answer: Hollywood. Between 1989 and 2003, the Democratic party raised an estimated $100 million from the entertainment industry. (To be precise: not just movies, but also music and television.) To put that money in context, that is about as much money as the Republicans are estimated to have raised from the oil industry.
While Hollywood Democrats tend to be rather more conservative than voting Democrats on economic issues, they veer way, way to the left on issues of culture and morality - exactly the issues where the Supreme Court plays its biggest role.
They are paying in other words for a big fight over Samuel Alito, and the Democratic party has no choice but to give them their moneyÕs worth. At the same time, smart Democrats realize that this is a fight they cannot win.
At the close of the first day of hearings, a Washington Post/Gallup poll found that 57% of Americans want to see Alito confirmed. Only 24% oppose his confirmation.
And no wonder. Modest and shy, Samuel Alito has risen to the highest offices in the land from humble beginnings through hard work and personal merit. Judge AlitoÕs father was born in Italy in 1914. His parents brought him to the United States as an infant. He worked as a street repairman, served in World War II, and returned to spend the remainder of his career as a schoolteacher in New Jersey.
Young Samuel Alito won admission to Princeton University and then Yale Law School. He devoted himself to public service and was appointed to the bench by President Reagan. At that time he was confirmed unanimously by the US Senate. He went on to distinguish himself as one of the most intellectually brilliant of AmericaÕs appellate jurists: a self-effacing and cautious judge who carefully followed existing precedent.
He is exactly the kind of justice that a reasonable Democrat would wish to see from a Republican president - just as, for example, Stephen Breyer (appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1994) was exactly the kind of justice that a reasonable Republican would wish to see from a Democratic president. Justice Breyer was approved by the Senate by a vote of 87 to 9. Samuel Alito should and normally would receive the same treatment if the Democratic party had not been driven collectively crazy by a decade of defeat. Alas for the Democrats, the bad decisions they are making in this collective craze may end by guaranteeing them another decade of defeat more.