2 important articles...

Ok, doing my daily read of real clear politics I came across two articles that I believe are very important. One showing how the Democratic base is still severly fractured and another showing how the GOP could get over-confident.

First the democratic one, courtesy of the Washington Times:

The Democrats' political divisions could be worse than New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said they were when she called last month for a cease-fire among the party's warring factions and a renewed focus on beating Republicans in the next election.
Her call for unity came at a time when a major sector of the party's working-class base appeared to be splitting apart, a key Senate Democrat was criticizing his party's credibility on national security and new polling data showed that a majority of the nation's working class has turned against unions, one of the party's most loyal allies.
These developments within the past two weeks have Democrats re-examining their future political strategies:
• Two of the country's biggest and most influential labor organizations, the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union, have left the AFL-CIO, taking $20 million in dues money from the powerful labor federation, which is one of the Democrats' chief donors. Their main complaint: The AFL-CIO spends too much money on election campaigns and not enough on union organizing.
• Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, former chairman of the centrist-leaning Democratic Leadership Council, which has entered into a strategic political partnership with Mrs. Clinton, said many Americans don't think Democrats "have the backbone" to protect the nation.
"Many Americans wonder if we're willing to use force to defend the country even under the most compelling circumstances," Mr. Bayh told the Associated Press last week.
• In another setback for unions, who have long been a pivotal voter constituency for the Democrats, a national survey of nonunion workers by independent pollster John Zogby found that only one-third of workers want to unionize their workplace, while a 56 percent majority do not.
With union membership in the midst of a sharp downturn, "these survey results seem to indicate that, under present circumstances, no amount of organizing effort would be able to turn around the decline," said David Denholm, president of the Public Service Research Foundation, which funded the poll.
Democratic strategists acknowledge that their party is undergoing a sometimes divisive debate about the party's direction after last year's election losses, but view this as a natural process of recovery.
"I think it's normal for a party to go through what the Democratic Party is going through after a loss. People are looking to see what we need to do differently that will put us back into the majority," said Maria Cardona of the New Democrat Network.
Mrs. Cardona says it is "too early to tell what kind of effect [the AFL-CIO's breakup] will have" on the party, but agreed with Mr. Bayh "that we need to formulate a message of confidence that we are willing to use force to secure this nation."
Meantime, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean has announced that he has put or is in the process of putting dozens of paid party organizers in 25 states as part of his drive to rebuild the party's grass-roots campaign apparatus.
"Nearly 90 [regional organizers] have been recruited so far, and more come on every day," the DNC said in a memo to its members.

The GOP one is courtesy of the LA Times, the times seems to be making a rush towards the center, good for them.

Republicans Run the Political Risk of Becoming Too Self-Reliant
Reward your friends. Punish your enemies. Unify the party. Marginalize the opposition.

These are the old-fashioned tools Republicans are using to entrench their control of 21st century Washington. Around these principles the White House and congressional Republicans this year have demonstrated focus, discipline and an ability to coalesce around difficult legislative goals rare for any political coalition in American history.

Even with occasional reversals, the GOP congressional majority has repeatedly united to move legislation toward President Bush's desk, most dramatically in a spasm of four major bills that cleared one or both chambers in late July.

If there's a danger for the GOP in this strategy, it may be too much success. This unification process often produces divisive results: legislation that aims squarely at the priorities of conservatives and offers relatively few concessions to other perspectives.

That guarantees antagonism from Democrats and risks discontent among swing voters, who generally prefer the parties to moderate each other. Cracks in Republican unity — such as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's break with the White House over stem cell research — inevitably attract the most attention. But the greater danger for the party may be a lack of internal second-guessing that encourages overreaching.

The essence of the modern Republican governing strategy is self-reliance. The goal is to resolve all issues in a manner that solidifies their political coalition. The means is to pass legislation primarily by unifying Republicans, thus shrinking opportunities for Democrats to exert influence. This approach represents the political equivalent to what the North Korean government calls Juche: a strategy of maximizing independence by minimizing dependence on outside forces.

This Republican Juche rests on several pillars. One is a commitment among Republicans to negotiate with each other, not Democrats, whenever possible. With Republicans holding House and Senate majorities, Democrats can influence legislation in only two ways. One is a Senate filibuster from the Democratic minority. The other is when Republican divisions force GOP leaders to bargain for Democratic votes to reach a majority.

Fear of the obstructionist label limits Democratic use of the filibuster. And the remarkable GOP determination to resolve their differences internally has virtually eradicated the opportunities for Democrats to gain leverage through Republican division. Republicans will accept Democratic votes (as on the recent energy bill) but almost never rely on them.

Case in point: Although a bipartisan majority supported intelligence reform last fall, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (D-Ill.) shelved the bill until he resolved disputes among key Republicans about the legislation's immigration provisions.

Likewise, in the late July scramble to build a narrow House majority for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the White House made its deals with skeptical Republicans (with concessions to sugar and textile interests) while mostly ignoring Democrats seeking concessions for unions.

That wheeling and dealing highlights a second pillar of the GOP Juche: Republicans are delivering for constituencies that then deliver for them.

On almost every major issue, Bush and congressional Republicans bend their legislative responses toward the interests of groups crucial to their political success, often weakening Democratic constituencies in the process.

CAFTA addressed business' need to open markets in Central America far more than labor's desire to ensure greater union rights. The energy bill subsidized oil, gas, coal and nuclear interests more than alternative energy sources that Democrats favor.

Limits on class-action lawsuits and liability suits against gun manufacturers benefit GOP allies (big companies, gun owners) over Democratic supporters (trial lawyers and mayors). Based on this pattern, if Congress passes immigration reform, it probably will respond more to business' desire for new guest workers than to the Democratic/labor priority of citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the United States.

It's too simplistic to say that Republicans take these positions because contributors demand them. Even if private contributions to candidates were banned, small-government ideology would lead most Republicans to the same conclusions. But the convergence of that ideology and the interests of business donors encourages a flood of campaign contributions that fortifies the Republican hold on power.

The GOP electoral strategy is moving in the same direction. Bush's performance among Democrats and independents was weaker in 2004 than 2000. But he won a popular vote majority by increasing both his margin and turnout among Republicans. As one senior advisor put it, Bush diminished the GOP's need to "rent" voters from outside its core coalition on election day.

This system isn't totally seamless. Some Republicans still dissent from the party consensus on social issues like stem cell research, or economic issues like budget deficits, or the degree that the United States needs cooperation from allies in foreign affairs.

But the fissures aren't that wide: Most Republicans fall on the conservative side of these questions. Which points to the greater danger: that Republicans confuse consensus in their coalition with consensus in the country.

Steering solely by the preferences of Republicans can lead the party toward policies far less popular outside their coalition — such as intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo or Bush's push to restructure Social Security.

That helps explain why the approval ratings for Bush and Congress are sinking ominously this year, especially among independents, even amid legislative achievements.

Republicans are talking mostly to each other now. But to maintain power, they may need to broaden the conversation before long.

I agree, hell if you read my blog I don't agree with everything Bush does, but that doesn't mean that I hate him. We need to broaden the conservative base, crush the dems!