Hamas

Back in college, I wrote a paper on the success of the Italian Communist Party in the mid-'80s,, then one of the largest democratic Communist parties in Western Europe. They were uncorrupt, hard-working and responsible for managing northern Italy's largest and best-run cities. Yet they couldn't achieve national power.

The answer to an Italian was simple. Ask why they voted to have the Commies run Rome, Milan and cities in between and they'd say because the Commies were clean, hard-working and good managers. The streets were clean, crime dealt with and the streetcars ran on time. Then why didn't you elect them to national office?

"Good God, man, these folks are -Communists-!!"

I wonder how applicable this will be in the new Arab Palestine, where Hamas now has to make the sewers work and the buses run on time.

Hamas's success shouldn't be much of a surprise. They were the only real organized opposition to Fatah, a decidedly non-democratic collection of corrupt thugs and plug uglies not too far from the better-dressed but just as smelly bunch the Communists replaced in Italy's municipal circles. You didn't like Fatah, where was there to go?

The scariest yet most intriguing part is how Hamas, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, has best learned the science of running and winning campaigns. They had James Carville-style political war rooms, legions of grassroots campaigners, many of them women, armed with clipboards telling them who was most likely to vote for Hamas and whether they'd gotten to the polls yet.

I've run local campaigns, I know the difference a smart ground pounding effort can make. For one, it makes you look serious about governing. If they're this well organized, the casual voter thinks, they'll probably pay attention to details when they're in office.

This is the real challenge to "spreading democracy." It's not just about elections. It's about knowing how to work within an open electoral system, mobilizing voters, raising money and forming coalitions. The dead wood authoritarians we're trying to reform in the Arab Middle East, like Fatah and Egypt's Mubarak, have no background and no history of this. You hold an election, you pronounce yourself a winner and you go home. Polling, voter tracking, GOTV? Huh?

Americans don't see this challenge because this country never really had it. In 1770 The American colonies were already freer than Britain in many ways. Colonial legislatures were smaller and more democratically responsive than Parliament. There were already the roots of a democratic political culture when the Constitution set up the republic we know today. Egypt doesn't have that.

We need to export more than just elections. Heck, a lot of these countries have been holding elections which mean nothing for years. We need to send them our pollsters, our campaign hacks and our attack ad wizards. We need to teach the non-Islamic side how to fight, and win, a legitimate democratic campaign.

Conventional wisdom holds that Hamas and groups like it will likely moderate their stance and become responsible once they have to sweep the streets. Could be. But back in the 1930's a certain German political party with a similar missionary zeal successfully learned and applied the fine arts of campaigning to win election and promptly put a stop to any future elections once they got in. And that was just for starters.

If we don't start exporting the high art of calling people at the dinner hour to get out an vote, we might not be seeing too many more open elections in the future around the Middle East either.