David Broder, often called the 'dean of Washington, DC pundits,' is reliably center—left/'sensible,' reflecting the views of most editorial page editors, and therefore boring and dim. Today's column in the Washington Post illustrates the point, and brilliantly demonstrates all that is wrong with the 'mainstream' reformers who have made the political process worse in recent decades.

Broder specifically laments the party presidential nomination process which has brought Howard Dean, increasingly recognized as a probable disaster for the Democartic Party, to the fore ten months prior to the actual election. He labels this system a 'rush to judgement,' as if it were the work of a bunch of impulsive kids. Broder reinforces the impression by excavating the 1968 Democrat Convention in Chicago, where street riots provoked a party regular backlash, nominating Hubert Humphrey. In the subsequent counter—backlash, the Democrats made rules changes taking power away from the bosses, and giving it to the 'grass roots,' ultimately via primary elections.

True, as far as it goes. But nowhere does Broder mention the names Clinton or McAuliffe, the masterminds of the Democrats' 'front—loaded' nomination process currently favoring Dean's early momentum. Broder is being either disingenuous or else he has a short term memory problem in which four years counts as a short term.

Broder's decanal duties presumably should include a measured approach to the big, or underlying questions. Clearly, the nominating process is a shining example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Almost always, ambitious reformers, their eyes burning with zeal to perfect mankind and establish heaven on earth, muck things up badly. Their fundamental misunderstanding of human nature — a naïve belief that we are perfectible — inevitably has them scratching their heads when promised results are nowhere to be found, but newly—created problems are multiplying.

The root impulse of the conservative is to be suspicious of change, and always question whether change will make things better or worse. In the current political era, where the Democrats and the left in general define themselves primarily as being anti—conservative, they are bound to trip over themselves repeatedly. Campaign finance reform illustrates the point nicely. Having adopted high—minded reforms, with the assent of even George W. Bush, in one of his give 'em what they want moods, we now have a process wherein George Soros can write a $15 or $500 million check to knock out any and all candidates not meeting his approval, but you and I cannot pool our $50 checks via a mass memberhip 'interest group' and buy political ads 60 days prior to an election.

Posted by Thomas 12 31 03