Since the beginning of time, Politicians have made their careers and their successes on selling their proverbial "kool-aid" to their constituencies and the masses at-large. There are two metrics for their success in these endeavors: 1) The amount of kool-aid sold, and 2) What they put in the kool-aid. Many politicians may be excellent salesmen, but not so good at mixing the kool-aid. Others have the reverse problem. But there is perhaps an even more dangerous trouble for politicians, and that is when they get tempted to start drinking the kool-aid themselves. During my campaign days, I always warned my colleagues (and candidates) against "believing our own spin." It can be disastrous; I've done it myself.
My guess is that Karl Rove, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Ken Mehlman, et al, have gotten out of detox this week and still have a kool-aid hangover from the last two years. Some would say the last six, but I would disagree. The Bush 43 Gang has been incredibly adept at taking another bit of Napoleon's advice, which is to control the scene of chaos on the battlefield. Taking advantage of the incompetence of Democrat leaders in 2000, 2002, and 2004, and maintaining an above 50% approval rating for the vast majority of that time (let's not forget that in the aftermath of 9/11 Bush's approval rating exceeded 80%), Bush and Rove had built what looked like an impenetrable Republican governing majority in the electorate. They were telling everybody about it. The trouble is they started believing it themselves. There's no such thing.
As soon as they started believing it, they became intensely careless, and far less calculating. Bush began to suffer from the same problem his Father suffered from in the waning days of First Term leading up to the 1992 election: aloofness. There was a distinctive turning point, an event that shouldn't have had nearly the political implications that it did, and that was Katrina. I am not willing to say that Katrina caused the turning point, but that is the time in the history of the last several years I can examine and say that after that incident, everything went downhill for the Bush Administration. The War in Iraq finally became Vietnam, Afghanistan began to fail, the Economy went down the tank, etc. Well, not at all. Those things didn't actually happen, but the public began to believe it. Enter Kool-Aid Mixers Part 2.
Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Rahm Emmanuel decided they had finally had it. Disgusted over the pathetic performance of the Democrats in 2004, and of John Kerry's laughable candidacy for the White House, they determined that they were going to get a coherent message and start pounding it. They remembered Clintonista Politics Rule #1: If you say something enough times, people will start to believe it. The Democrats, for the first time since Bill Clinton left office, got on the same page and said one thing with two parts: Bush is out of touch on 1) Iraq, 2) The Economy. They said other things too, about health care, and education, and so on, but it was irrelevant. What mattered was they kept a clear and consistent, though simplistic message on Iraq and the Economy.
Now that they've won, the Democrats better not make the mistake the Bush Administration made and start drinking their own kool-aid. The Democrat kool-aid tastes like this: Bush was a total failure on Iraq and the Economy and the Democrat plan is what everybody wants...after all, look at the election results, right? If they start drinking that kool-aid, they will suffer the same fate in 2008 as the Bush Administration and the Congressional Republicans suffered last Tuesday.
One final note on Kool-Aid Drinkers...I would be remiss in this particular blog if I did not make mention of the Election 2006 Kool-Aid Drinker of the Year, the man who should perhaps be poster-child of Kool-Aidaholics Anonymous, Virginia Senator George Allen. He made the worst mistake any politician can make: start running for President while trying to run for re-election to something else. Hillary Clinton hasn't been traveling to New Hampshire or Iowa, she solidified New York. After all, there's no way she would be elected President without New York. Bill Frist retired from the Senate, Mike Huckabee didn't run for the U.S. Senate in 2004, and Mitt Romney didn't seek re-election to the Mass. Governorship. Allen took his home state for granted, and they showed him the door. Aloof doesn't cut it in politics, especially in this day and age. So here is my tribute to the Kool-Aid drinkers of 2006 with their new poster child...
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