No candidate for office can get elected nowadays without having a plan to keep their community safe from terrorism. And, while the administration in Washington and many of their partisans have raised the politics of fear to new heights, it doesn't diminish the need for Democrats to have a well thought out response to the question: "How do you keep us as safe as possible?" Then, like now, Democrats were looked at skeptically by the electorate as being weak on crime. The infamous "Willy Horton" ads, which George H.W. Bush had used to sink Michael Dukakis' campaign for president in 1988, left voters with the impression that Democrats were incapable of tamping crime down.
But one term later, Democrats, lead by Bill Clinton, answered with the most far reaching and innovative federal anti-crime initiative ever -- the C.O.P.S. program. It did the most intuitive thing -- it hired more than 100,000 beat cops. It worked. It put police in every neighborhood, town and city. It brought crime down. And it changed the electorate's perception of Democrats.
Now the C.O.P.S. program is again the solution to the substantive challenge our nation faces and the political hurdles we as Democrats face in the wake of 9/11.
While President Bush has tried to use aid to state and local governments as a political trough, President Clinton ensured that every community benefited from the C.O.P.S. program. Sure, big cities like Chicago and L.A. hired officers with federal help. But so did small towns like Marengo, Illinois and Plano, Texas.
Republicans, despite adopting "tough on terror" rhetoric, have turned their backs on the state and local police and sheriffs who provide our first line of defense. In what can only be described as a double-whammy, they have not only left local law enforcement with more responsibility, they have cut the resources those local cops and deputies need to keep us safe. Let me explain.
