Contributors
Carol Platt Liebau - Columnist

Carol Platt Liebau is editorial director and a senior member of the CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial board. She is an attorney, political analyst and commentator based in San Marino, CA, and has appeared on the Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable and a variety of radio programs throughout the United States. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Carol Platt Liebau also served as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. [go to Liebau index]

The Democrats’ Potemkin Convention
An Exercise in “Misleadership”...
[Carol Platt Liebau] 8/2//04

Back in 1787, Queen Catherine of Russia arrived to tour a portion of the Ukraine overseen by army officer and statesman Grigory Potemkin. His plans for the region had failed, but despite the rampant poverty, misery and disease, the queen’s tour was an enormous success – for Potemkin simply erected an impressive but false façade of a clean and prosperous village to conceal the truth. Even today, the phrase “Potemkin Village” refers to a situation where an ugly reality is cleverly disguised by an artificial, politically generated appearance.

Last week’s Democratic National Convention was an operation that would have made Potemkin proud. Both in substance and in tone, the convention operated in total denial of the party’s true beliefs, as well as its recent mode of expressing them.

Let’s look at some statistics. According to the Associated Press, 41% of Democratic delegates supported gay marriage; only 21% opposed it. And according to a liberal group dedicated to gay rights, the Stonewall Democrats, at least 236 gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender delegates attended the convention, approximately 6% of the delegate pool. One might have thought they would have been interested in the party’s position on gay marriage – John Kerry supports civil unions and opposes a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to a man and a woman. But you wouldn’t have known it by paying attention to the convention.

According to a CBS/New York Times poll, 64% of delegates and 37% of Democratic voters would permit abortion in all cases, and only 19% of delegates and 39% of Democrats support the death penalty. John Kerry and John Edwards have both voted against a ban on partial birth abortion – and John Kerry has opposed the death penalty for years (only recently, he articulated an exception for terrorists – although he had opposed such an exception in the past). But discussion on that topic was as hard to find as, well, a pro-life convention speaker.

The same is true with regard to gun rights, school choice and so much more. In an event that is supposed to be devoted to explaining and celebrating a party’s principles, the Democrats instead chose to conceal theirs. When it came to the substance of the party’s issues, deception through omission was the order of the day.

As for its tone, the convention was devoted to muting the irresponsible, overheated rhetoric heard from Democrats throughout the spring and summer – so much so as to constitute deception by commission. Michael Moore was treated like a “rock star” by the convention’s attendees, but the organizers didn’t let him anywhere near the speaker’s podium. Instead, speaker after speaker, up to and including the nominees themselves, eschewed “negative campaigning.” This, after Kerry himself had called the Bush administration “the most lying, corrupt group of guys” and had endorsed the vulgar vituperation of Hollywood heavyweights like Whoopi Goldberg and John Mellencamp (who called President Bush a “cheap thug”).

And notwithstanding all the calls for optimism aimed at swing voters presumably observing the Potemkin Convention, only two days after its conclusion, the Democrats were up to their old tricks. On just one Sunday morning news show, Howard Dean appeared to accuse the Bush Administration of raising the terror alert just for political reasons. He was followed by Senator Robert Byrd, who, in an embarrassing sequence, accused the President of violating the Constitution by waging war without the consent of America’s allies. When gently queried by an uncomfortable Wolf Blitzer about where such a mandate appears in the Constitution, Byrd was left speechless. With his palpable anger and overheated rhetoric, it seems that Byrd’s become the “Dean of the Senate” in more ways than one. And these two brief appearances were far more representative of the tone of Democratic Party at large than all the gentle words streaming from the convention last week.

Here’s a prediction: When the Republicans get their chance next month, they won’t dodge the issues of partial birth abortion, gay marriage or gun rights at their convention . . . because they don’t have to. Their stated positions correspond much more closely to the views of mainstream Americans at large – and the Democrats know it.

Although much has been made of the fact that moderate Republicans will be featured in New York, welcoming moderate speakers testifies only to the diversity of belief within Republican ranks. Why weren’t Democrats showcasing their “dissenters” – aside from Joe Lieberman’s six-minute valedictory? Where was Democratic Sen. Zell Miller? Oh, that’s right – he’s preparing to attend the Republican convention.

When the most honest speaker at a convention turns out to be Al Sharpton – who went off-script to offer a full-throated endorsement of the party’s beliefs combined with an expression of contempt for President Bush, to raucous applause -- it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that there’s a serious problem.

It’s natural that a party wants to use its convention to put its best foot forward. But what does it say about a party that believes its popularity depends on hiding its true colors from the electorate? Eagerness to conceal both its views and its most enthusiastic boosters is hardly an expression of confidence by a political party. And jettisoning one’s friends and principles – all in order to win – is hardly an act of conscience.

Americans aren’t as stupid as the Democrats obviously believe they are. It’s hard to believe that they will get lost in the Democrats’ Potemkin Village. CRO

Columnist Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst, commentator and CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial director based in San Marino, CA. Ms. Liebau also served as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review.

copyright 2004

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