REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The Hormel Democrats
In attacking Ashcroft, they forget why Bush won Middle America.
With Bill Clinton having split for Chappaqua with the Spielberg china, Democrats
have a chance to present a new image to the public. Yet by opposing John Ashcroft
for Attorney General, Senate Democrats seem intent on reminding Middle America
why it voted against Al Gore. 
Some of our readers may already have seen the nearby map of America breaking down the vote in the last election. Mr. Gore won the two left coasts, the latte towns and tonier suburbs, and remnants of the progressive upper Midwest. President Bush won everything else. The map reflects a country divided by culture, with the traditionalist middle rejecting the anything-goes mores of the Clinton years.
Well, here we go again, with the same culturally liberal interest groups who ordered around Mr. Gore now making the Ashcroft vote a litmus test for Senate Democrats. NARAL, NOW, People for the American Way and the rest know they can't defeat him. But they're twisting arms behind the scenes to get as a large a negative vote as possible, as a way to show their muscle and to warn Mr. Bush not to name any conservatives to the Supreme Court.
The problem for many Democrats, however, is that voters may notice the company they're keeping. Barbara Boxer, the super-liberal from California, was the first Senate Democrat to declare against Mr. Ashcroft. Ted Kennedy followed close behind, this week joined by Pat Leahy from the Swedish Republic of Vermont and the noted moderate from the great state of New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton. This may all be thrilling news in Hollywood and Manhattan. But we wonder how this brand of Democratic leadership is going to look in, say, Georgia, Montana or South Dakota.
Especially because this time the liberal Borking strategy has been a bust. First the interest groups played the race card, but not even rejected judicial nominee Ronnie White would say that Mr. Ashcroft was racially motivated. The debate over Judge White had been about crime, specifically the death penalty, and Democrats sure didn't want to be soft on that. Then the opposition tried the gender/abortion card, but Mr. Ashcroft defused that one by pledging to enforce even laws he dislikes.
If nothing else, the Hormel matter certainly is instructive about our current cultural divide. Liberals want to make homosexuality not just a matter of tolerance but essentially a qualification for office: Oppose a gay nominee and you're automatically a bigot.
Never mind that Mr. Hormel was also opposed by the U.S. Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights because he had pronounced himself amused at the public mockery of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a notorious anti-Catholic gay group. "When Senator Tim Hutchinson gave James Hormel the opportunity to denounce anti-Catholicism, Hormel refused to do so," wrote William Donohue of the Catholic League in 1998. Luxembourg is more than 90% Catholic.
Mr. Hormel claims he was misrepresented, and maybe he was. But the politics of "tolerance" cuts both ways, and there's no denying that the modern gay-rights agenda has moved beyond mere peaceful co-existence to mock and stigmatize traditional religion. Catholics have been a special target because of the Pope's refusal to bend the church's centuries-old belief that homosexual acts are sinful. Mr. Hormel's critics were merely using the kind of identity politics that liberals have used for years.
The news is that so many Senators are nonetheless lining up to be Hormel Democrats. It's no accident that both North Dakota Democrats, the usually hyper-partisan Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad, came out early for Mr. Ashcroft. George Bush won their state by two-to-one. But all of the potential Democratic presidential candidates seem to be falling into opposition line: Hillary of course, and even Indiana's Evan Bayh. Joe Lieberman is still pondering from Mt. Olympus.
Mr. Lieberman might reflect that following the liberal line didn't help him or his running mate last year. Democrats lost the White House, despite peace and prosperity, because Middle America didn't share their cultural values. Lining up against John Ashcroft won't help win them back.
