The new Democrats populating the House and Senate are notably more conservative than the old batch. Jim Webb, Ronald Reagan's old navy secretary, who at the time of writing looked to have defeated George Allen in Virginia's knife-edge senatorial race, is just the most obvious example. These new Dems tend to have military backgrounds and to be strongly religious, like the newly elected Heath Shuler in North Carolina, who opposes abortion and is so devout that he refused to campaign on Sundays. This was the deliberate recruitment policy of Rahm Emanuel, a Clinton White House veteran who ran the party's Congressional Campaign Committee and decided he needed candidates who could fend off Republican charges that Democrats were liberal and secular wimps.
Superficially, the party may seem unchanged, as the California liberal Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female speaker, and old bulls like John Dingell and John Murtha take over key committee chairmanships. But in reality, its centre of gravity has shifted significantly to the right. In policy terms, this means that we are unlikely to see any dramatic new policies in Iraq, that the Doha round of world trade talks is dead and that there will be no vengeful attempts to impeach Bush.
The rise (and fall?) of Obama
Bill Clinton used to say that "the first primary is money." Not any more. The new first primary is winning the prize of media infatuation. Clinton himself won it in 1991-92, and the fresh young senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, is the latest toast of the press corps, despite being only two years in the Senate. But then he was president of the Law Review at Harvard Law School, which is probably a grander CV item than Clinton's Rhodes scholarship. We shall see how the media's love-in with Obama survives the nasty little scandal that is starting to emerge about his real estate deal with an indicted political fundraiser called Tony Rezko, to improve their adjoining properties on Chicago's south side. Rezko, a major donor to Obama, was under investigation by a grand jury while the deal was being made. He is pleading not guilty to fraud and corruption charges on kickbacks from investment firms who wanted to do business with the state of Illinois. The oddest feature of this story is that Obama paid to have Rezko's lawn mowed.
Stop Hillary!
The interest in Obama is spurred by the prospect that his popularity means Hillary Clinton may not sail unchallenged to the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. The press corps wants to cover a fight, rather than a coronation. So speculation is rife that Hillary may duck the presidency (a mere eight years of power at best) and decide instead to devote herself to congressional politics, becoming majority leader and queen of the Senate. The idea was first raised by the New York Post, owned by Clinton's new fan and fundraiser, Rupert Murdoch, which endorsed her for re-election as senator but voiced the hope that she would stay on in the Senate, avoiding the presidential trail. And now the word is that some party elders, including Joe Biden and Robert Byrd, have been telling Hillary that her Senate skills—she won over the Senate's Republican Christians by attending their weekly prayer breakfasts, and has friends across the floor—are just what the party needs to become the permanent majority party.
But the smart money does not swallow this theory. If Hillary's sights were limited to remaining senator for life, she would not have positioned herself so conservatively on abortion and gay marriage. And her new coterie of Hollywood stars as campaign helpers also looks like an investment for '08. New Yorkers have been treated to recorded calls from Robert De Niro, saying, "She took on the Bush administration," and Tony Bennett crooning, "Some people think I left my heart in San Francisco, but it really is right here in New York. That's why I'm promoting Hillary."
Zbig and the Israel lobby
Zbigniew Brzezinski, formerly President Jimmy Carter's hawkish national security adviser, remains one of the most influential Democratic foreign policy heavyweights, and is regularly invited to Capitol Hill to give closed-door briefings to the House and Senate Democratic caucus. Always a sceptic on the Iraq war, his briefings have become standing room only, and he is usually only challenged when he criticises Israel. But since the Lebanon war, Zbig reckons something fundamental has changed. During a recent trip to congress, he compared the effect of the Iraq war on US influence in the middle east to the loss of Anglo-French power after Suez. American dominance of the region was now in crisis, he said, and "we face the possibility of being pushed out of the middle east." This got big applause. He went on to say that the US's role could be saved only if the great unmentionable were addressed. "The fact is that our policy on the middle east is paralysed by domestic politics," he said. The power of the pro-Israel lobby through political fundraising and lobby groups had to be challenged. He expected this to earn him brickbats from his audience. To his great surprise, he got a standing ovation.
