After November 7th

A couple weeks ago, there was a story about how the Bush White House had literally no plan for governing if the Democrats took the Congress. It made sense, as they've had no plan for postwar Iraq, post-storm New Orleans, and on and on. But if there's one thing Republicans make sure they get buttoned up, it's power. And some stories out today show that reality is hitting them square in the face and they're making plans for a post-November world.

Some of those plans include shredding:

Spotted on 10/19, by an eagle-eyed Wonkette reader: The Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services truck making its way up to the Cheney compound at the Naval Observatory [...]

You better get crackin’, Dick — that evidence won’t destroy itself!

That's crazy, as it suggests that there's simply so much to shred that they have to bring in a truck full of shredders to get the job done.

And other of those plans include getting as much done as possible under the wire, and fighting tooth and nail to get these done OUTSIDE THE LEGISLATIVE ARENA:

If lame-duck Presidents are to achieve anything, they often have to look for ways to go around Congress, especially when it is in the hands of the other party. Clinton used Executive Orders and his bully pulpit to encourage school uniforms, impose ergonomic rules on employers and prevent mining, logging and development on 60 million acres of public land. White House press secretary Tony Snow says Bush may take the same bypass around Capitol Hill. "He told all of us, 'Put on your track shoes. We're going to run to the finish,'" Snow said. "He's going to be aggressive on a lot of fronts. He's been calling all his Cabinet secretaries and telling them, 'You tell me administratively everything you can do between now and the end of the presidency. I want to see your to-do list and how you expect to do it.' We're going to try to be as ambitious and bold as we can possibly be."

In fact, when it comes to deploying its Executive power, which is dear to Bush's understanding of the presidency, the President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as "a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."

The message that the Bush White House would receive from a voting public that goes overwhelmingly against them is not to govern from the center and look for bipartisan compromise, but to supersede the very legislative arm of the country itself. We're already in the midst of a Constitutional crisis on a few issues, but the strategy of the executive branch is to widen and expand that crisis. And they'll cry martyr all the way, claiming that the mean Democrats are blind with partisan rage. This is part and parcel of how they work: conservative victimhood and an unwavering resolve to challenge everything.

The Democrats simply can't fall for this and buckle under pressure. I agree with Digby:

The chattering classes are all abuzz with the notion that now is the time to bind up the nation's wounds and work across the aisle. (I can't help but wonder why they didn't see the need for such rapproachment during the last decade of slash and burn GOP partisanship.) This pattern is well documented. They will continue to drain the treasury and play our their "movement" experiments and then have the democrats step up and clean up the messes they make until this is stopped. The conservative movment is a failure and it must not be allowed to govern this country anymore with its lies, debts and dangerous foreign policy.

We are confronting some very serious problems right now, only one of which is terrorism. The Republicans have destroyed our international reputation at the very time when we need global cooperation. And they have driven the nation itself into the ditch dividing the country with their polarizing wedge politics and blaming everyone but themselves for their failures.

The Democrats have to be the "grown-ups" yes. And one of the unpleasant tasks will be figuring out what went wrong, putting safeguards in place so the same things don't happen again and making people take responsibility for their actions. That is what adults do. Letting bygones be bygones and simply blathering on about how we all need to put the unpleasantness behind us and get along will not win the respect of the American people nor will it fix the problems this nation faces. (That, after all, is the indulgent mommy model that the Republicans have been using as a club to beat us over the head with for the last 30 years. No more.)

It's going to be very hard for the Democrats to stand up and do their duty. The Republicans will be calling for bipartisanship out of one side of their mouth and engaging in the same brand of power-grabbing all the same. I'm not saying that the Democrats need to implement a liberal agenda; indeed, it's clear that moderate Democrats are among the many new ones who have the potential to hand the gavel to Nancy Pelosi in January. What the Democrats have to do is lead by their actions. People across the country are turning to the Democratic Party because of core competence.

Democrats lead Republicans by 23 points in perceptions of effectively managing government

When Republicans won majority control of Congress in 1994, they had a slightly better public image than the Democrats on a number of dimensions. Public opinions on those dimensions have ebbed and flowed during the past 12 years, but today the Democrats have the more positive public image, particularly when it comes to perceptions about the party's competency to run the government.

I really don't think that competency is about issues. It's about leading, firmly and strongly, and ensuring that the Bush Administration will not continue to go unchecked. If Democrats shrink from every major fight and run screaming into bipartisan arms, they're not going to give the public any confidence that they have the leadership qualities to run the government. And not only do the polls overwhelmingly show that the public wants checks and balances to return to the national sphere, they're actually overwhelmingly in support of the stated Democratic agenda:

But what does the public want? The following are listed in order of approval (approve, disapprove, no opnion):

Increase the minimum wage (86 14 1)
Pass legislation to provide healthcare insurance to those who do not have it (79 17 4)
Allow Americans to buy prescription drugs imported from other countries (72 25 2)
Set a time-table for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (63 34 2)
Implement all of the anti-terror recommendations made by the 9/11 commission (62 25 13)

That's why Democrats should be and are talking about the first five.

The public is very much in line with the 100-hour agenda that Pelosi has announced. And they understand that a primary function of the Congress is oversight. Without either, voters will simply lose faith in the Democrats to actually stop this mad rush towards a unitary executive. That's why this election is so important, but also that's why the post-election period is important, and I'm hoping the Democrats will learn the right lessons.