The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat
By U.S. Senator Zell Miller
Review by Matthew T. Joe
Democrats are learning firsthand Sen. Zell Miller's self-proclaimed mantra: "It's not whose team you're on, it's whose side you're on." His newly-released book, "A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat," makes clear what side he's on through his scathing indictment of Democratic Party leaders.
To the dismay of a party scrambling to find an issue that resonates with voters, Miller, a party insider feeling pushed out, examines every Democratic stereotype and declares them all true with a sharp, biting wit and a trademark southern charm.
Beholden to special interests? You bet. Out-of-touch with voters? Yep. Clueless as to the South? Right again.
"The [Democratic] Party is no longer a link to most Americans," he writes, predicting the onset of political rigor mortis. "Each advocacy group has become more important than the sum of the whole. It is a rational party no more. It is a national party no more. So, bang the drum slowly and play the fife lowly, for the sun is setting over a waiting grave."
Harsh words indeed, but not a proclamation he is pleased to make. The Democratic Party runs in his blood and is hard-coded in his DNA, he says, and he would never betray the party that has betrayed him. His book is intended as a wake-up call to the Democratic leadership, whom he claims has sold its birthright in favor of sleazy prostitutes.
"The national Democratic Party is in eminent danger of being cannibalized, eaten alive by the special interest groups with their single-issue constituents who care only about their own narrow agenda," he writes.
And these special interest groups are of a different stripe than their Republican counterparts: "The difference is the grand pooh-bahs of the Democratic groups insist on front row seats and demand that a lot of fuss be made over them. They are very high maintenance and they want everyone to know they are the tail that wags the dog."
Just looking at the Democratic presidential candidates makes him sick, he says, which is why he endorsed President Bush for 2004. They are stirring up the fire ants in a nation at war and inciting the emotions and prejudices of certain groups to make a big scene.
Nothing but pure demagogy, he concludes. "What [the Democratic presidential candidates] are saying has so little substance they have to make up for it with histrionics. But they should realize that their overheated rhetoric is dividing the country when they should be helping unite it."
Such is the lot of the party's liberal ideologues, who have kept the party on a short leash, costing it elections and pulling it increasingly away from voters. Their half-baked ideas are especially unpopular in the South, where even most liberals have conservative streaks.
Democratic Party leaders, failing to recognize political and social realities of one-third of the country, alienate and insult Southern voters with their condescending nods and paper-thin facades.
"The biggest problem with the party leadership is that they know nothing about the modern South. They still see it as a land of magnolias and mint juleps, with the pointy-headed KKK lurking in the background, waiting to burn a cross or lynch blacks and Jews," Miller writes. "When it comes to romancing the South, they bring their flowery bouquets wrapped in old, dried-up carpetbag containers."
And because these Democratic leaders allow no dissent or compromise within their ranks, they've even betrayed Zell Miller.
"Democrats have never seen a snail darter they didn't want to protect, but sometimes I think the one endangered species they don't want to save is the Southern Democrat," he writes. "However, they do want to use us ever so often, usually in the fall every other year."
Miller has had enough. His conscience has been itching at him to open his mouth and tell it like it is.
"No Democrat wants to tell the leaders of their party that they have halitosis," he confesses. "But they do and it cannot be improved with a little mouthwash right before that date they have every other year with the South."
Matthew T. Joe, a 2003 intern at The Heritage Foundation, is a senior at the University of Georgia and the founder and editor of the Georgia GuardDawg.
