Victory for Democrats doesn't equal a win

Victory for Democrats doesn't equal a win

By LEONARD PITTS JR.

A letter to the Democrats: Congratulations. If the prognosticators are correct, you are about to win a victory that will shift the balance of power in one or both houses of Congress. Of course, if the prognosticators are incorrect, you will soon be committing hara-kiri. In which case my only advice would be: one hard thrust and then pull up.

But this letter proceeds from the assumption that the prognosticators are right. On that basis, I want to make a plea.

Let me preface by saying the campaign that ends here feels like it's been seven years long. Last week, the Washington Post published a story describing it as "a carnival of ugly, especially on the GOP side." The Post was referring to ads like the one in New York that accused a Democrat of using taxpayer money to pay for phone sex — after a campaign aide misdialed a government office and reached a porn line, at a total cost to taxpayers of $1.25. Then there's the Tennessee ad that makes a nod to white racist sentiment by implying that senatorial candidate Harold Ford Jr. — who is black and unmarried — might be intimate with white women. Or the one accusing Democrats of wanting to abort black babies. "If you make a little mistake with one of your hos ... " begins the announcer.

And yes, last week we suffered through John Kerry trying to make funny. Agreed, that's a traumatizing thing. But really, there is no comparison.

These low-blow ads symbolize what many of us have found troubling about the GOP in recent years. Meaning a certain boorishness; a certain disconnect from reality; a certain say-anything, do-anything-to-win mindset, all wrapped up in a priggish facade of moral rectitude garnished with arrogance and sprinkled — liberally — with hypocrisy.

So, if you win power here, please don't assume it validates anything you've done. If you win, it's because of Mark Foley and Theresa Schiavo and Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush and Jack Abramoff and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Dick Cheney and Hurricane Katrina and 2,800 dead soldiers and because, as my mom used to say, enough is enough and too much stinks.

More to the point, you don't win because of you. Heck, I don't even know who you are. Ever since Bill Clinton left town, you have been inept at defining yourself, communicating your ideals with all the clarity of, well, John Kerry trying to tell a joke. I don't know what you believe, what you plan, where you want to take the country. I daresay most people don't. A victory here just means that you were the only other game in town. And yet it would give you a rare opportunity.

I suspect I speak for many when I say I'm tired of wedge politics. I'm tired of stupid, I'm tired of greed, I'm tired of polarization, I'm tired of red and blue mattering more than red, white and blue.

I want to know what it's like to have a sense of national mission, what it's like to strive for instead of against. I want to be hopeful about the future again, want my country to be looked at with respect again. Most of all, I want to see statesmen again. Meaning men and women who can debate, do battle, compromise and disagree over issues of great importance, but not let party, partisanship or politics stand in the way of doing what is best for the country.

In these years of Republican bacchanal, we have seen the fissures between us widened, minorities among us demonized. All in the name of politics. Yet we've seen very little of substance get done.

Now, if the prognostications are correct, here comes you, taking power in a nation desperate for change. Which brings me to my plea. By all means, enjoy the champagne and confetti.

But once the bottles are empty and the floor is swept and it's time to go to work, I wish you would, for me, for all of us, remember to do one thing with this victory.

Earn it.