Krugman has some very important advice for Democrats in his column today (yes, it's Times Select):
Now that the Democrats are strongly favored to capture at least one house of Congress, they’re getting a lot of unsolicited advice, with many people urging them to walk and talk softly if they win.Enough said is right. The American people support the Democratic agenda based on the latest Newsweek poll. Despite that, they'll need to fight to get that agenda enacted.
I hope the Democrats don’t follow this advice — because it’s bad for their party and, more important, bad for the country. In the long run, it’s even bad for the cause of bipartisanship.
There are those who say that a confrontational stance will backfire politically on the Democrats. These are by and large the same people who told Democrats that attacking the Bush administration over Iraq would backfire in the midterm elections. Enough said.
Krugman also points out that the dialogue in American politics is not going to change as long as the GOP strategy is to divide and polarize:
The reason we have so much bitter partisanship these days is that that’s the way the radicals who have taken over the Republican Party want it. People like Grover Norquist, who once declared that “bipartisanship is another name for date rape,” push for a hard-right economic agenda; people like Karl Rove make that agenda politically feasible, even though it’s against the interests of most voters, by fostering polarization, using religion and national security as wedge issues.The Democrats have to fight hard to win against the GOP slime and negative campaigning. They'll be fighting the same slime and negativity when the GOP is in the minority, too.
As long as polarization is integral to the G.O.P.’s strategy, Democrats can’t do much, if anything, to narrow the partisan divide.
