California Democratic Dinner

I went to the Tulare County Democratic Central Committee's annual dinner tonight and got a preview of the Democrats' likely 2008 campaign strategy. The audience, primarily composed of Democratic activists, candidates and supporters, warmly and enthusiastically applauded the party's positions.

The principal speaker was California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres. Torres began his career as an organizer for Cesar Chavez with the United Farm Workers. He served in the State Assembly from 1974-1982 and as a State Senator from 1982 to 1994. He was the first Latino Democrat to run for statewide office, being defeated for Insurance Commissioner in 1994. He has chaired the state party ever since.

In his opening remarks, Torres stressed above all else Democratic opposition to the War in Iraq. He also mentioned the party's commitment to protect Social Security and defeat attempts to privatize it. Torres maintained that the lengthy primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was nothing to be concerned about and is not unusual in Democratic Party history. He went through all the nomination contests from 1960 to the present, explaining that there were several highly contested competitions, including 1960, 1976 and 1992, when the nominee was not decided until late in the season and the Democratic candidate still went on to win. He made a virtue of this pattern, saying that Democrats traditionally enjoy a good fight and are not lockstep conformists. He pointed to the 5-3 primary turnout ratio over the Republicans as evidence that the Democratic race was generating excitement among the public which bodes well for the party's prospects in November. He reported that in California since the start of the year the Democrats have registered 150,000 new voters and the Republicans only 39,000, and that similar ratios are occurring across the country.

Torres then spent the bulk of his speech tying John McCain as tightly as possible to the unpopular policies of President George W. Bush. This no doubt previews a major part of the Democratic strategy this year. He said he expects the Republican campaign to attack hard against Obama or Clinton, and his response leaves little uncertainty that he believes the best answer will be to strike back at McCain even harder. Though McCain has cultivated an image as a maverick, Torres said that the Republican presumptive nominee has sided with Bush 89% of the time in his Senate votes. He ran off a long litany of McCain positions on such issues as the war, the deficit, Constitutional rights, Medicare, children's health, oil drilling, the subprime mortgage crash and cutting off unemployment benefits while bailing out Bear Stearns that make the familiar Democratic case that Republicans support big interests and neglect average Americans. "A McCain presidency would be a Bush third term," Torres said.

He also made clear that if Obama is the Democratic standard bearer and the Republicans come after him for his association with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Democrats are ready to assail McCain for his pursuing and receiving the endorsement of the Rev. Ted Hagee, whom he said has described all Muslims as killers and the Roman Catholic Church as a "whore" and a "cult."

The Democrats, still smarting from the Florida and Supreme Court imbroglio of 2000 and the "swiftboating" of John Kerry in 2004, appear ready and itching for a bloody fight if their opponents go negative this time. Both McCain and probable Democratic nominee Obama have seemingly sought to keep their campaigns on the high road as much as possible in '08, but if things start down the low path this time it could get very ugly very quickly.