This weekend a gaggle of congressional Democrats will gather in the Virginia horse country to do what they do best. They`ll conduct seminars and no doubt re-examine national priorities, consider the pressing issues of the day and address the party`s direction in the 1990s.
Given the current state of their party, the Democrats might as well talk to the horses.
The afterglow of the Persian Gulf victory puts the state of the Democratic Party in stark relief. The fact that there is no credible Democratic presidential aspirant stalking through Iowa in anticipation of the 1992 campaign misses the larger point.
At the presidential level, the party of FDR and John F. Kennedy has all but ceased to exist.
Certainly there are ambitious politicos who wear the Democratic label. And there are pollsters and consultants in service to these candidates. And there is a party structure, currently occupying itself with plans for a national convention next year.
In a revealing act of near-perfect idiocy, by the way, that convention will be held in New York City.
What better place for a party going nowhere to gather than that urban chamber of horrors, a place where the Democrats are certain to be overshadowed every day of the convention by some Manhattan melodrama involving violent crime or racial craziness?
The dearth of presidential candidates, and the endless speculation that Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee will run and Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York won`t, overlook a more fundamental problem for the Democrats.
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It`s true they don`t have any ideas for dealing with the swamp of education and health care and crime issues, but neither do the Republicans.
President Bush came to Congress last week with the largest cache of political capital collected by a president in this century. Beyond some bluster about crime and drugs, he couldn`t muster a single new idea for dealing with nagging domestic problems.
When it comes to intellectual bankruptcy, neither party holds the key to the mint.
But Republicans, at least, know how to win presidential elections. The last man to organize a White House victory for the Democrats, Hamilton Jordan of Georgia, is currently working in the tennis business.
The rest of the Democratic crowd-the folks who helped Walter Mondale lose 48 states and the Harvard types who supplied Michael Dukakis with his brain trust-now function as experts, telling reporters how the party they helped strip down to parts ought to revive itself.
Capitol Hill these days is awash in would-be strategists, Democratic operatives serving time as congressional aides with no more chance of getting near the White House than Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.
Scratch a Democratic congressional aide and you`ll hear a tale of woe about the Gary Hart campaign, or the Bruce Babbitt effort or days and nights on the trail with Richard Gephardt.
None of these folks can fathom how to conduct a successful national campaign, in part because Democrats have been out of the White House for all but four of the last 23 years. In the parlance of the sports page, the Democratic Party has no bench strength.
There is no Secretary of State James A. Baker III among the Democrats, no seasoned public figure who knows his or her way around a successful run for the presidency.
And there is no one comparable to Republican operative Lee Atwater, a certified election-winner now battling an inoperable brain tumor.
Democrats can win at congressional, state and local levels because they still possess the ability to attract credible candidates, because the aforementioned pollsters and consultants can maneuver around a local issue or two, and because, in many cases, they`ve been nurtured in those offices by the joys of incumbency.
At the national level, however, the party leadership has become indistinguishable from its consultants and pollsters.
Where do you go if want to talk about the condition of the Democratic Party?
The designated hitters-Democratic National Committee Chairman Ron Brown, House Speaker Tom Foley of Washington and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine-spend their time reacting to events and to the Republican agenda.
They deal in controlling damage, much of it self-inflicted, or they make soft, accommodating noises about good government and bipartisan comity.
It`s a party with nothing to say and no one to say it. Why should anyone bother to go to Iowa?