OPINION
If Tuesday’s vote in the House to fund the federal government through the rest of the fiscal year had failed, Democrats and the legacy media would have savaged Speaker Mike Johnson and his Republicans for their incompetence and inability to govern.
But a failed continuing resolution would have been worse for Democrats. Ordinary Americans would have seen virtually every congressional Democrat voting to shut down the government.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries seems to have urged his party to do just that. As the vote approached, his leadership’s “Whip Notice” exhorted Democrats to sink the resolution, saying its passage “would remove most guardrails that direct where funds should be spent” and “allow the White House to accelerate its dismantling of critical services.”
Most Americans wouldn’t be swayed by such mush. They think the government wastes too much of their hard-earned money. They would have concluded that Democrats shut the government down out of blind, naked partisanship. And they’d have been right.
Government shutdowns always hurt more the party that tipped the vote against a continuing resolution. Consider Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Mike Lee (R., Utah), who boxed Republicans into shutting down the government for 16 days in 2013. They thought Democrats would support abolishing ObamaCare in return for the GOP’s reopening Washington. Fat chance. Democrats happily let Republicans take shot after shot from an angry public that had no interest in blasting Democrats. After all, the GOP provided the votes that pushed the country into a shutdown.
Even Republicans’ reversing course and opening up the government without so much as a haircut for ObamaCare didn’t calm Americans’ frustration. A late October 2013 Washington Post/ABC News poll found 63% of the public had an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party.
Today Democrats are in a deep hole. A new Quinnipiac poll finds only 21% of voters approve of how congressional Democrats are handling their job, while 68% disapprove. That’s the lowest approval number the party’s legislators have had since Quinnipiac started asking this question in 2009. By contrast, a record-high 40% approve of how congressional Republicans are handling their job while 52% disapprove.
One problem for Democrats is that they have no effective spokesman. As a group, they’ve failed to make a credible case against President Trump’s actions, even as the stock market declines and economic concerns proliferate. With Democratic centrists and progressives at odds, they’re unable to offer a unified front against the president.
Compounding all this is their adolescent public behavior, on display during Mr. Trump’s address to the joint congressional session last week. The evening opened with Rep. Al Green (D., Texas) repeatedly heckling the president until he was escorted off the House floor by the sergeant at arms. It was bad form and worse TV. Mr. Jeffries would have scored points with the public had he told his fellow Democrat to sit down and shut up.
Other than Mr. Green’s antics, Democrats largely sat on their hands throughout the speech. They seemed uninterested and disengaged, refusing to stand and applaud as a teen fighting brain cancer achieved his dream of being made an honorary Secret Service agent, a 95-year-old mom reveled in the return of her son from years of captivity in Russian prisons, and the president honored a father who gave his life to protect his wife and daughter last July in the attempted assassination in Butler, Pa.
Those moments and others were human and touching, unless you were a congressional Democrat. By failing to demonstrate compassion or gratitude, they appeared out of touch with the public. Only 51% of those who watched the speech told CBS News in a March 4 poll they were Republicans, yet 62% of all respondents said Mr. Trump was a unifying figure and 71% found him inspiring. That had to include some Democrats and Independents.
Op-Ed by Mr. Rove, courtesy of rove.com, was first published in The Wall Street Journal.
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process.
Mr. Rove has been described by respected author and columnist Michael Barone in U.S. News & World Report as “…unique…no Presidential appointee has ever had such a strong influence on politics and policy, and none is likely to do so again anytime soon.” Washington Post columnist David Broder has called Mr. Rove a master political strategist whose “game has always been long term…and he plays it with an intensity and attention to detail that few can match.” Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, has called Mr. Rove “the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation. He knows history, understands the moods of the public, and is a visionary on matters of public policy.”
Before Mr. Rove became known as “The Architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, non-partisan causes, and non-profit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional, and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.