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Virginia
Democrats appear to have taken a page from the
playbook of the Democratic National Committee.
Several months ago, the DNC elected former
presidential candidate Howard Dean to be its chair.
Dean’s strident tone has been polarizing and an
embarrassment to many Democrats. Among other notable
statements, Dean has called the GOP “pretty much a
white Christian party” and said that a lot of
Republicans “have never made an honest living.”
When
Kerry Donley announced that he would step down as
chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, the
state party turned to former state legislator C.
Richard Cranwell to take Donley’s place. Cranwell
declared before he was elected that he wanted to
follow Virginia Gov. Mark Warner’s example and
promote bipartisanship in Virginia.
Cranwell’s
election on June 18 came just as some leading
Democrats were publicly criticizing Dean’s style
of leadership. The Los Angeles Times quoted
Warner as saying that Dean was not using “the kind
of tone a lot of Democratic governors in mostly
Republican states are using to get elected or to
govern.”
Yet
in his first act as chairman, Cranwell set a tone
closer to Dean than to Warner. He discarded
bipartisanship in favor of a not very subtle attack
on social conservatives and accusations that the GOP
had achieved success through misrepresentation.
This is likely to provoke a round of debates about
which party has told the biggest whopper.
Cranwell
has long been known for his biting wit and tough
partisan tactics. Following his recent comments
about the desirability of bipartisanship, some
observers thought perhaps a new and more moderate
Dickie Cranwell would emerge as party chairman. That
hasn’t happened.
Politics
in Virginia does not function in a vacuum. Cranwell
would have been well advised to avoid comparison to
Dean. Had Cranwell’s inaugural speech as state
party chairman not been delivered against the
backdrop of daily news coverage of the political
firestorm caused by Dean’s intemperate comments,
few might have noticed Cranwell’s shift in tone.
The
same criticism that many have directed at Dean can
be leveled at Cranwell. Both have used inflammatory
language without offering any substantive ideas of
their own. This emphasis on the negative is hardly
the approach that Warner has been pitching to
national Democrats.
The
kind of negative politicking that Dean and Cranwell
lately represent makes it difficult to persuade
voters that some attacks on the opposing party or
its elected officials are warranted and fair. Not
all negative politicking is out of line. In fact, a
certain amount is necessary if politicians are to be
held politically accountable to the voters. If
politicians lie to the voters or violate campaign
promises, they should be taken to task.
Voters
have a difficult time distinguishing between
negative attacks that are fair and even necessary to
healthy politics and those that cross the line.
Unfortunately, both the warranted and unwarranted
negative attacks contribute to the public’s
diminished respect for politicians.
The
problem with the type of name calling that Dean and
Cranwell have engaged in is that it doesn’t
contribute to political accountability or to
constructive political debate. It is calculated
merely to excite the passions of the party’s hard
core. Warner, who asked Cranwell to lead the party,
may want to have a heart-to-heart talk with him
before the new leader drowns out Warner’s message
to national Democrats.
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July 11, 2005
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