No Mandate

Well-respected Democratic pollster has a must-read column in today's Wall Street Journal. In it, Schoen argues that if Democrats achieve a landslide slew of victories in the presidential, Senate, and House contests next weel, such a victory would not be a national mandate for the party to govern from the left. Rather, wide Democratic wins would be the product of a national rejection of President Bush's policies and the rightward movement of the Republican Party over the last several years. Here's his thesis:

Stated simply, if the Democrats conclude that they have a mandate to implement their agenda without real consultation with the Republicans, as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island suggested in an interview with the New York Times last weekend, the country will be headed for trouble.

Real trouble.

This election is not a mandate for Democratic policies. Rather, it is a wholesale rejection of the policies of George W. Bush, Republicans, and to a lesser extent, John McCain. But it is not, as poll after poll has shown, an embrace of the Democratic Congress, which has approval ratings that are actually lower than that of the president.

The American people are actually seeking a middle route: consensus, conciliation and a results-oriented approach to governance. We need consensus on how to best stimulate our economy, and how to get a deficit that is approaching $1 trillion under control. We have tough choices to make involving entitlement programs like Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

Consequently, Schoen contends that Obama and Democratic congressional leaders must govern from the center and fashion bipartisan solutions to the biggest problems of the day. Schoen calls on Obama to name several prominent Republicans to key cabinet positions.

I could not agree more with Schoen. While many Republicans think they are losing this year because they have moved too far to the middle, they could not be more wrong. This country is disgusted with the division and the vicious partisanship that gets nothing done in the way of comprehensive immigration reform, the construction of a real national energy policy, and other issues.

I am as partisan as anyone; in fact, I would be willing to admit that I am more partisan when it comes to electoral politics that just about every person imaginable. But winning elections is one thing, and governing is quite another. Democrats should be delighted in the wins they score on Tuesday, and not let their egos get ahead of them as a result: indeed, as polls show, they are not that popular themselves, it is just that the GOP is even less popular and thus the party is being seen as the lesser of two evils.

The ball will be in Barack Obama's court more than anyone else's. He can set the tone by putting Republicans into his cabinet, and not just in one or two token positions as President Bush did when he took office.

If Obama and Democrats are smart and they embrace the center, they can reap longterm electoral rewards and perhaps achieve the lasting majorities that eluded George Bush and Karl Rove. If they move too far to the left or get too ambitious, they will feel voters' wrath in 2010.