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November 19, 2004
How Democrats can win
Several different explanations have been floating as to why Kerry lost, and how Democrats could win in the future. These are:Run more charismatic candidates. On the surface, this seems obvious; not since Adlai Stevenson's time has the more charismatic candidate lost. This, however, sidesteps the fact that ideology, and the perceptions of it, influence people's propensity to like a candidate. To most of us on this site, Howard Dean was a compelling, charismatic candidate, but to those further to the right, he came across as angry and bitter. If people don't like the candidate's ideas, they won't like him personally. (The same is true in reverse: is there anyone who disagrees with Bush's policies but likes the man personally)
Develop an infrastructure of think tanks, talk radio, cable TV etc. This is certainly necessary, but this is a long-term project that won't be ready in time for 2008, or even 2012.
Use religious language more. If we used biblical language to argue that invading Iraq was morally wrong, would voters have responded Maybe, but I doubt it.
This theory assumes that voters are conservative because they're religious. But what if the opposite is true: that they're religious because they're conservative Consider the Pew poll taken after the election. It found that the main correlation between religion and politics wasn't based on whether the voter was evangelical, mainline, or Catholic, but rather whether they were traditionalist, centrist, or modernist within their chosen denomination. Traditionalists voted Republican, modernists voted Democratic.
This supports the notion that if someone is of fundamentally conservative mindset, they vote Republican and interpret the Bible as conservative. If that is the case, any appeals to liberal religion will simply be attempts to reach a type of faith that doesn't exist.
Run southern candidates. Not since Kennedy has a non-southern Democrat won the presidency. But being southern didn't help Carter get a second term, didn't prevent Clinton from losing Congress, and didn't help Al Gore carry even his home state. Edwards was a southerner; Bentsen was a southerner. Yawn.
Move to the left on economic issues. This is the Thomas Frank theory; in his book What's the Matter with Kansas he argues that working-class voters, seeing little difference between the parties on economic issues, vote Republican on social issues.
Recent evidence of this actually working is hard to find. In olden days, Johnson's great 1964 victory and Roosevelt's four victories showed the power of a groundbreaking economic program, but the public had a trust of government then it doesn't have now, and is unlikely to have any time soon without the media infrastructure mentioned above. Clinton's 1993-94 economic program was only mildly liberal, but it produced a backlash that delivered Congress to the Republicans for 10 years and counting.
Besides, in 2004 exit polls indicated that most voters for whom the economy, Social Security, health care etc. were the dominant concern were already voting for Kerry. Likewise, Gore did use some anti-corporate rhetoric in the 2000 election, but he continued to run behind Bush on "moral values" and taxes, which in the end trumped his issues.
Some point to the victory in the Montana governor's race as a model. This, however, featured a move to the right on the gun issue. The pattern appears to be that leftward economics only makes a winning program if Democrats:
Move to the right on social issues. This is the standard advice coming from much of the media and DLC types. Retreat from gay marriage to civil unions; quit quibbling over Ten Commandments displays, allow some restrictions on abortion. The Clinton victories of 1992 and 1996 are usually cited as examples of this working. But those victories were Pyrrhic; Clinton's retreats on crime and welfare didn't prevent Democrats from losing Congress.
Furthermore, this tiger can't be appeased. There is nothing to stop Republicans from shifting the bar still further to the right. Clinton signed the DOMA; now they want a constitutional amendment. The Senate voted 99-0 to keep God in the Pledge of Allegiance, but four Democratic senators went down the defeat anyway. In order to neutralize social issues for conservative voters, we'd have to move so far right we'd lose the support of liberal and moderate voters.
Move to the right on defense issues: This issue has been sorely neglected in the post-election analysis, due chiefly to the CNN exit poll finding that "moral values" ranked higher than "terrorism". Moral values, however, are a composite of at least three different issues: gay marriage, abortion, and personal religiosity.
It seems obvious to me that terrorism/defense issues did cost us the election. But it's not immediately clear what can be done about it. Most Americans subscribe to "city on a hill" nationalism: America is always right, its military force is always right and moral, and to suggest that American troops might not be fighting for a just cause is disloyal and treasonable. Since the Vietnam era, Democrats have been regarded as appeasers and pacifists to America's real or imagined enemies, from communists to Islamists. Voting for war authorizations or increased defense spending doesn't help.
Conservative rhetoric regularly paints the Democratic Party in the same league as anti-war groups like International A.N.S.W.E.R, and the jingoistic rage many people feel towards war protesters outweights whatever misgivings they may have about the war.
All the criticisms we lobbed at Bush - the incompetence in the war's execution, the dishonesty in launching it, the escape of Osama bin Laden, the sad state of homeland security - couldn't penetrate this fundamental distrust of Democrats and progressivism. Voters simply refused to believe that Democrats were as serious on terrorism as Republicans.
The trouble with this argument is that it was tried in 2002. Congressional Democrats voted for the Iraq war and made a great display of supporting him. It didn't help. Yet had they simply opposed it, they would also likely have been defeated.
A new, distinctly Democratic militarism:
We need to make nationalism and patriotism work for us, not against us. Democrats need to embrace military force, but use it in ways that benefit real people instead of Halliburton. Back in 2002, we should have opposed the war in Iraq, but proposed in its place an alternative, more just war -- taking on the genocidal regime in Sudan. Judicious use of force, as in Kosovo in 1999, Bosnia in 1995, and Haiti in 1994, can topple oppressive regimes and can make the world a better place.
Clinton was able to neutralize the welfare issue in 1992 by outflanking Republicans - by actually proposing to "end welfare as we know it", something even they hadn't dared do. Likewise, any terrorism platform that would work for us has to be seen as tougher than the Republicans. We should have advocated sanctions on Saudi Arabia if it didn't stop funding madrassas and start liberalizing. We should place ultimatums to the motley crew of Arab despots who take in US aid: improve the status of women and move toward elections, or the aid is cut off. We should pull troops out of Iraq and return them to Afghanistan to finish off the Taliban.
Tough-talk rhetoric, distasteful as it might sound, makes us look strong. Fretting about alienated European allies, no matter how well that concern is justified, makes us look weak.
Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat, for heaven's sake - why should Bush be the one benefiting from faux Wilsonianism?
Posted by Tyrone at November 19, 2004 08:54 PM