Seminal Summer

CBS' Dotty Lynch: Normally A Snooze, This Summer's Stories Have Legs For Fall

(CBS)  Dotty Lynch is the Senior Political Editor for CBS News. E-mail your questions and comments to Political Points.

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The summer of an off year in politics is supposed to be a snooze. No presidential campaign, no conventions, not even congressional elections to get the political blood churning.

The summer of ’05, however, was filled with intense political activity. Here’s my list summer stories that will still have legs in the fall:

1) The breakup of the AFL-CIO.
There has been dissent inside of the AFL-CIO for years but the disparate factions held together through the 2004 campaign. The dissidents, led by the SEIU’s Andy Stern, have been champing at the bit to revitalize (or take over) the labor movement. This summer, they finally went nuclear with the inside fight. How this affects the state and local federations, the ability to stem the hemorrhaging of union members and what it means for Democratic candidates in 2006 is yet to be played out. But there will be an impact.

Tied to the break-up of the AFL is the demise of ACT, Americans Coming Together — the very well-funded, professionally run, grassroots arm of Democrats in 2004. One big money source, George Soros, decided to take his ball elsewhere, but labor was a big player in ACT. ACT’s leaders say things are merely being rearranged and, in 2006, the Democrats will have sophisticated voter contact operations. But it is unclear if, where and how labor will use its resources.

A piece of that rearranging belongs to Howard Dean. He came in as chair of the Democratic Party with the claim that he could bring new people and new money into the party. So far, his record on fundraising is fair and he has shown a continued propensity for foot in mouth disease. But Democrats still seem ready to give him time. He is in lockstep with congressional Democrats, whom he once compared to cockroaches, as he tries to bring his outsider message to the inside. However, many say the jury is still out on whether he’s the right guy for the job.

2) The War in Iraq
While Americans are grumpy about gas prices and President Bush’s job approval rating has declined, perhaps the most significant shift in public opinion over the summer has been the turn against the war in Iraq.

In a special congressional election, the surprisingly strong showing by a Democrat — Iraq veteran Paul Hackett — in the solidly Republican district in Cincinnati, Ohio, sent a wake-up call to both parties that the war still has potential to galvanize voters.

The attention garnered in Crawford, Texas, by Cindy Sheehan rivaled that of the vacationer-in-chief while a strong op-ed piece by former Sen. Gary Hart, which called Democrats’ silence on the war a cowardly act, touched a nerve with a number of activists. But it is unclear whether it will move Democrats who see national security as the new third rail of politics.

3) The Gang of 14
The potential for this group of seven Democrats and seven Republicans to control the Senate is great, but so far they haven’t done much since they got together in May to stem the nuclear option vote. This group, six of whom are up for reelection, are targets of much of the advertising in the confirmation vote on John Roberts. Leaders in both parties are keeping an eye on them. Two Gang of 14 members, Lindsay Graham and Mike DeWine, are on the judiciary committee. They will be watched particularly closely. Their leader, John McCain, is a gang unto himself and will always be happy to stir the pot — and get reporters to notice.

4) Bill Frist and Stem Cells
Republican majority leader, Sen. Bill Frist, who seemed to be looking for ways to endear himself to the political right during the spring, suddenly lurched back to the middle when he said he would support funding for new embryonic stem cell lines. A few weeks later, he made it clear that he also supported teaching Intelligent Design in schools, so Frist hasn’t exactly gone soft. But, while his move on stems cells won him some praise from the editorial boards, a group of Christian conservative activists have been running ads in Iowa putting him on notice that they want him to change his position.

5) The staying power of blogs
The power of the Internet was one of the big stories of 2004 but many in the mainstream media predicted that blogs were just a fad. In 2005 they have not only survived but have achieved greater legitimacy as credible voices of advocacy. Perhaps no better illustration is Dan Balz, the Washington Post chief political reporter, who has started using blogs to illustrate dissent inside the Democratic Party. While more establishment political players will say nasty things off the record or on some form of background, bloggers exist to tell it like it is. The anger on the left at Hillary Clinton’s speech at the Democratic Leadership Council, as well as the division between the liberal blogoshphre and the Democratic Party in the special election in Ohio, were all played out on the blogs, as Balz reported.