Civil war among Democrats?

Ron Brownstein is one of the most insightful reporters around. He now reports that a truce is expiring among Democrats in Washington.

With respect to domestic policy, Brownstein says this.

The domestic squabble extends a long-standing dispute about how heavily Democrats should rely on anti-corporate and anti-free-trade economic populism in their message.

During the 1990s, many liberals felt that Clinton abandoned class-conscious themes by supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement and a balanced federal budget. Conversely, in 2000, centrists charged that Al Gore (news - web sites) fissured Clinton's winning coalition by reverting to a populist message that they believe drove away affluent social moderates.

As someone who is a relatively affluent social moderate (maybe even liberal), I can provide anecdotal support for the charges of the Democratic centrists. I voted for Clinton twice. But Gore's populist approach turned me off for two reasons. First, I didn't believe in the wisdom of it. Second, given his record as a centrist, I didn't believe that he believed in it.

With respect to the Democrats' internal fights over foreign policy, Brownstein notes that Peter Beinart, the editor of the New Republic, wrote an article last month that started the debate. Among other things, he urged Democrats to "take back their movement" from antiwar elements in the party that he called "softs," a group that included filmmaker Michael Moore and MoveOn.org.

In my judgment, not only does Beinart offer good advice from a purely policy point of view, but he offers good advice from a purely political point of view. Given that national security will be the most important issue in presidential elections for the foreseeable future, the Democrats need to find a way to convince a larger portion of the American electorate that they have at least as good of a vision for how to improve our national security. The problem, as I see it, is that I'm not really sure how, before 2008, they could actually achieve the necessary consensus on any "new" approach. The only solution, I think, is to actually nominate someone with the necessary "tough" credentials. Right now, Biden is the only realistic option who I see.

Biden, McCain, Biden, McCain. I'm like a broken record.