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The Wedge Strategy
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Nov 09, 2005 04:11pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| News Date | Wednesday, November 9, 2005 08:20:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | If you are a political junkie, you’ll remember Wedge Strategy 1.0. Invented by the Republicans in the 80s, the idea was to create division within the then-majority Democratic Party at the grassroots by highlighting “wedge issues” such as affirmative action, abortion, gay rights, free trade and immigration. The aim was to create friction between, say, black Democrats and white unionists over affirmative action. Party-building is about papering over conflicting views; the Republicans’ goal in those years was to expose them.
It was an outside, grassroots game.
The Democrats’ New Wedge Strategy is an inside one, aimed at Bush-led Republican Washington, where team loyalty is supposed to be the number one virtue, and where the president has ruled with an iron hand. The Democrats want to unhinge that discipline by exposing — or creating — friction between: Bush and Cheney, Bush and his political advisor, Karl Rove; the White House and the Republican-run Congress; and between competing Republican leadership tongs on Capitol Hill.
None of these figures or factions is popular in the country right now, and the Dems’ rather simple idea is to force them to defend each other in broad daylight. And the Dems know that Bush — a loyalist by nature, who believes in the Texas ad adage of “dancing with the one that brung ya” — is likely to take the bait. |
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