That’s the advice Mickey Kaus is selling to the Democrats. He argues that theming their 2006 and 2008 campaigns with “a return to normalcy” will provide the message that the Democrats so desperately need.
The problem with this plan begins early:
The essential premise is that Bush has stretched the military, the Constitution and the civility of our politics to the limit in reaction to the threat of future 9/11s. All this fevered straining and leveraging may have been appropriate at the time, but there’s no real need to keep running in hyperdrive. We can routinize the anti-terror struggle the way we routinized the Cold War, when just as much was at stake. We don’t have to make an end run around the Constitution or a duly-passed statute (wiretapping). We don’t have to torture prisoners or hold them forever without hearings. We don’t have to slight disaster relief (Katrina) because the Department of Homeland Security worries only about terrorists. We don’t have to unmask CIA agents in a desperate effort to build a case for war. ** We don’t have to alienate our allies. We don’t have to run giant deficits to finance our armed forces, as if the “Global War on Terror” were a temporary crisis that will be over in three years. It’s not. It’s a semi-permanent part of the landscape. Democrats can contain the terrorist threat the way, for four decades, they helped contain the Russians–while (as during the Cold War) we allow ourselves to turn our attention to domestic problems such as health care and Social Security.
The problem is that once again cements the Democrats as the party of weakness on national security. That and civil values continue to be the Democrat’s two biggest weaknesses. The fact is that Kaus is once again trying to apply Cold War doctrines to an enemy that can’t be contained in the way that the US tried to contain Soviet Communism. Fanatics like Osama bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad don’t necessarily worry about mutually assured destruction – besides, who would we nuke in response to an al-Qaeda nuclear attack?
Kaus’ strategy essentially is the Democratic strategy, and it hasn’t worked in the last four years. He’s right that the Democrats are much stronger on domestic issues than foreign policy, but in the post-9/11 world the Democrats have not yet been able to adapt to the fact that the old doctrines just don’t apply anymore. In those rare cases where the Democrats have made serious arguments on national security, very few of them have reflected the fundamental shift in world politics that have occurred in the wake of September 11, 2001.
What can the Democrats do to stop being weak on national security? They have some strong arguments that Bush is not the right person to bring democracy to the Middle East. He’s too tainted in the eyes of the world. The incidents at Abu Ghraib have forever tarred us as torturers. We’re doing a decent enough job militarily (tarring the war hasn’t brought the Democrats any advantage), but Bush is terminally tone-deaf when it comes to winning the larger ideological struggle.
The Democrats should adopt a comprehensive strategy for national security along the lines of the one proposed by General Wesley Clark. Clark’s one of the few Democrats who can say that he earned the endorsement of Michael Moore but still stands a chance of showing a viable and strong Democratic plan for Iraq. The Democrats need to say that they will strongly protect the national security of the United States, they will not allow for failure in Iraq, and they will work to repair the damage done to the American image abroad. In other words, an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove.
What else could the Democrats do? Purge the MoveOn.org crowd. Fire Howard Dean. Replace Harry Reid in the Senate with a moderate like Joe Lieberman (which of course, the Democrats wouldn’t even consider doing). If Lieberman won’t do, make Evan Bayh the Majority Leader. Get someone who can speak to Middle America in their own terms. Get rid of Nancy Pelosi in the House. A San Francisco liberal has many strikes against them from the beginning. Start positioning the Democratic Party as a party that will not back down from a fight.
If the Democrats want a return to normalcy, they also have to act normal. The Democrats should send a memo to every Democratic member of Congress. No more attacking Bush. It alienates anyone who doesn’t share their ravenous dislike of the President. There are 40% of the people who are die-hard Bush supporters. There are 40% of the people who hate Bush with a passion. Whichever party can reach out to the 20% that are in between will win. In 2004, Bush improved his position in regards to nearly every demographic because it became a contest between Bush and not Bush. Any race where your own side becomes nothing more than a negation of the other side is a losing race. Hatred of Bush does not win elections.
If 2006 becomes an election where voters choose between the status quo and a Democratic Party whose primary focus is a politically-motivated impeachment of President Bush, the Democratic Party will lose. The politics of personal destruction didn’t work for the Republicans in the 1990s, and it won’t work for the Democrats this year or in 2008.
The Democrats should continually focus the center of political attention away from Bush and towards domestic issues. The more the Democrats harp on NSA wiretaps, Valerie Plame, Iraq, and other issues of national security, the more they cement themselves as party of weakness on national security issues. Those issues may matter to the Democratic base, but they alienate everyone else.
The Democratic left wants to push their party harder and harder towards the “progressive” left. If the “netroots” take control of the Democratic Party, they’ll lose. No matter how much the Democrats try to “frame” issues to appeal to their caricature of the American voter, they can’t win if they’re a party dominated by a secular, liberal elite.
While the partisan in me relishes the idea of another Democratic defeat, the Republicans need strong competition to keep from getting complacent. We need a Democratic Party able to prod the Republicans towards fiscal responsibility. We need a party that can help push democratization and temper some of the diplomatic blunders of the Bush Administration. We need an effective, capable, and sane opposition. Right now, the Democratic Party is none of those things. For the good of their own party and the nation, the Democrats need to be able to effectively challenge the Democrats. While the weakness and continued partisanship of the Democrats is the political godsend of the GOP at the moment, having one political party in a two-party system dive off an ideological cliff is not healthy. If the Democrats want to win, Democratic moderates must seize control of their party before the radicals steer it further and further away from the American mainstream.
My God! How many times can you say the exact same thing using only slightly different words?
“Yes, Mr. Kettle? I have Mr. Pot on line one. He says something about you being black.”
The main idiocy of the Democratic party lies in the fact that, rather than adjusting to the times and realigning, they’re still trying to rebuild the New Deal coalition, long after the coalition has failed and the reasons for its existence have been made obsolete. A recent poll cited on reason.com said that the approximate breakdown of political ideologies among voters runs something like this:
27% Conservative
23% Liberal
20% Populist (defined as Socially “Conservative” and Economically “Liberal”)
20% Libertarian (defined as Socially “Liberal” and Fiscally “Conservative”)
10% Undefined/Variable
Democrats are automatically at a disadvantage here; there are more “conservatives” than “liberals”. But they disadvantage themselves even more by fighting over the same swing turf as the GOP- the populists. The Democrats need to wake up and realize that the GOP has completely co-opted this wing of the New Deal/Cold War coalition, and they’re not getting them back. Yes, John Kerry can tromp around in hunting garb and talk about his military record until he’s blue in the face, but it’s not going to play in Peoria- or South Dakota, for that matter. The populists are gone, and there’s a simple reason for that- the GOP has become a populist party!
We’ve got two parties struggling to keep their core constiuencies while trying to act populist, yet simultaneously ignore the fact that the other end of the spectrum, the libertarians, are JUST AS POLITICALLY POWERFUL! (Note that by libertarian I’m meaning the definition given above, NOT the Libertarian party, which embraces an extremist anarcho-capitalist philosophy. The typical “libertarian” isn’t such an extreme dogmatist; they generally just prefer smaller government, less regulation, and a liberal attitude towards social issues)
Yet, for some reason, the libertarian vote is taken for granted by the GOP- which makes no sense, given that the GOP has spent the last five years courting Populists and giving Libertarians the finger. At the same time, the Democrats aren’t even trying to win the libertarian vote. Why not? Every anti-war libertarian blogger I’ve read seems to think Bush is akin to satan; the CATO Institute is having fits; Reason magazine has no love for him; most “moderate” libertarians I know have turned against the GOP.
The Democrats need to build a Liberal-Libertarian coalition to oppose the Republican Conservative-Populist coalition, yet they seem to be too dumb to see the way the wind is blowing. Until they can construct a coherent vision that incorporates federalism, civil liberties, internationalism, fiscal responsibility, and a commitment to the future, rather than simply “ME TOOing” everything that the republicans do, the Democrats won’t be able to check the GOP’s power, which is bad news for Liberals and Conservatives alike.
“they’re still trying to rebuild the New Deal coalition, long after the coalition has failed and the reasons for its existence have been made obsolete.”
How has it been made obsolete? Because we’ve solved all the problems outlined in the New Deal? You got some ‘splaining to do here.
“Yes, John Kerry can tromp around in hunting garb and talk about his military record until he’s blue in the face, but it’s not going to play in Peoria”
First of all, Kerry won Peoria. Secondly, what should Kerry have done in place of tromping around in hunting garb and talking about his military record? Should he have ignored populist goose hunters and veterans entirely? How would that benefit anybody?
The Democratic Party has very little chance of shoring up the numbers of libertarians as the GOP has done with populists. I challenge your assertion that there as many libertarians as populists in the first place. And if the Democrats seriously made an effort to pull in Cato Institute radicals, it would certainly come at the expense of their existing constituency, including myself.
Lastly, are these red-state populists really gone forever? Louisianans are currently getting a heaping spoonful of the government they voted for, and don’t seem to be too satisfied with it. The GOP coalition strikes me as unsustainable, because the very people you say are “gone from the Democratic Party forever” will inherit the most financial despair as a result of supporting GOP policies. Furthermore, as a calculated means of hanging onto their populists, Bush-era Republicans have been spending like Democrats on most social programs. It no longer seems as though that will be the case. Do you really believe the Bush coalition (a scant 51% majority of the electorate) can remain intact when pro-life Republican Wal-Mart clerks in Chattanooga can no longer count on Medicaid to cover their children’s illnesses? Sooner or later, self-interest will take hold among the soft populists….and considering the paltry GOP majority, a loss of even 10% of them will swing elections.
There’s a great deal of truth to that. Like Tim Pawlenty said a while ago, the GOP is more “the party of Sam’s Club, not just the Country Club.” In fact there was a great article on that in The Weekly Standard a few months ago. And they even agree with Mark on a few of his observations (proving that even a stopped clock can be right twice a day).
And for the record, Bush did win in Peoria, by a larger margin then he won nationally.
Jay, we have some conflicting data here. CNN has election returns updated directly from the Secretary of State offices of the respective states. Here’s what they show as the results from Peoria County from 2004: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/IL/P/00/county.002.html
The World Book Almanac cites an identical figure for Peoria County. Given that the numbers you present are much smaller, I suppose it’s possible that the city of Peoria went Bush and the rest of the county went Kerry, but that seems very unlikely. I tried the Illinois Secretary of State website, but couldn’t find a link to election returns that may clear up the confusion. I’ll keep digging….
Here was the original uncertified count for Peoria County registered by C-SPAN. http://network.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2004/general/by_county/pres/IL.html?SITE=CSPANELN&SECTION=POLITICS
It shows a Kerry margin that was tiny, but still slightly larger than margin in the official count document by CNN and the World Almanac. Both counts show Kerry winning, however.
I finally found the Illinois Elections Website and it confirms the numbers I cited for Peoria County from CNN and the 2006 World Almanac. http://www.elections.state.il.us/ElectionInformation/VoteTotalsList.aspx?officeid=2889
Still can’t find a link to returns from the city of Peoria though.
“The Democratic Party has very little chance of shoring up the numbers of libertarians as the GOP has done with populists. I challenge your assertion that there as many libertarians as populists in the first place. And if the Democrats seriously made an effort to pull in Cato Institute radicals, it would certainly come at the expense of their existing constituency, including myself.”
If by “libertarian” you mean Ayn Rand quoting gun-nuts who believe in the abolition of the government, well, then, no, there ain’t many of them. But if you mean people who are generally oriented towards conservative/neo-liberal economic views and liberal social and cultural mores and policies, then yes, I’d say they easily make up 20% of the voting population. Popular libertarian backlashes have managed to capture the governorship in several states. (Minnesota? California?)
However, populists have several major advantages over libertarians that makes them coveted by pollsters- first, they’re much more disciplined and reliable as both activists and voters. Most moderate libertarians are fairly apathetic in their voting and activist habits, both as they’re generally apolitical to begin with and don’t feel like either party appreciates them.
Second, populists are easy to mobilize, since there’s a common institution that most of them share: evangelical Christianity. While there are conservative, liberal, and libertarian evangelicals, populism is the dominant political form among them. Populists fit into set demographics and regions that are easy to speak to. Libertarians, on the other hand, don’t share any common institutions or demographic.
Third, populists are generally older and more community oriented, whereas libertarians are younger and self-motivated; young people are not reliable voters. Sufficiently charismatic candidates can get them to the polls, but, barring that, they’re not reliable. It’s also much harder to motivate them with fear; while a segment of the libertarian vote can be mobilized through fear of gun control or higher taxes, these generally don’t pull them out en mass the way that an issue like, say, gay marriage can mobilize the populist base.
So yes, while in *theory* libertarians are as strong a base as populists, the difficulties inherent in mobilizing them make them politically a much weaker force. And, like liberals, they are a very issue-oriented and diverse lot; even if a rural New Hampshire mountain man and a Seattle tech nerd share the same general political outlook, in practice, their politics will likely be extremely different.
On top of that, I’m not talking about “pulling in” the radicals by pandering to them as much as by suggesting that the Republicans have triangulated in such a way that a major section of their base no longer has a real reason to support them and should naturally be supporting the democrats. Why should a socially liberal, anti-war, pro-free trade, pro-small government, anti-PATRIOT Act libertarian support the Republicans these days? The only reason I can see is that the Democrats aren’t trying to pitch a big tent to “pull them in”.
Anyway, Mark, where would you go? The Green Party? We all saw how well THAT turned out. 😉
“The GOP coalition strikes me as unsustainable, because the very people you say are “gone from the Democratic Party forever†will inherit the most financial despair as a result of supporting GOP policies. Furthermore, as a calculated means of hanging onto their populists, Bush-era Republicans have been spending like Democrats on most social programs. It no longer seems as though that will be the case. Do you really believe the Bush coalition (a scant 51% majority of the electorate) can remain intact when pro-life Republican Wal-Mart clerks in Chattanooga can no longer count on Medicaid to cover their children’s illnesses? Sooner or later, self-interest will take hold among the soft populists….and considering the paltry GOP majority, a loss of even 10% of them will swing elections.”
As long as homos, fetuses, and lies can distract them, they ain’t going anywhere. And given how paltry the planned budget cuts this year were, I doubt the Republicans will quit “spending like Democrats” any time soon.
Sheesh, spend all this time ranting and raving, and then you gotta do some real research and whip my ass with it…
You win this time. The figures I had seem to be incomplete or provisional. Just don’t let it go to your head. 🙂
My comment yesterday was essentially eaten by the server, so I’ll try to explain again.
First off, to Mark, yes, 20% of the voting population being “libertarian” is probably right on the mark. (Pardon the pun) Does this mean that 20% of the population are CATO-style anarcho-capitalists or Ayn Rand quoting gun nuts? Um, no. Libertarian, in this context, just means socially “liberal” and economically “conservative” (or neo-liberal). This is a position that describes anyone from (at the extreme edge) the Libertarian party, to Jesse Ventura’s independence party, to even (by some accounts) most “Clinton Democrats” (Bill, that is, not his %#&@! wife) and old-establishment Republicans. It doesn’t mean that one advocates all the extreme positions advocated by a group like the Objectivist Center or CATO.
Yet, for some reason, these voters aren’t really coveted by either party, despite having numbers similiar to those of populists. And, as I now realize, there’s a clear reason for this.
Populists are the most reliable and easily motivated voting block, whereas libertarians are the least. Libertarians only really become a factor in elections where a charismatic candidate manages to draw them out of the woodwork; Ventura’s victory in ’98 can be attributed to this, while Schwarzeneggar’s victory margins were much more solid than they would have been without this effect. Unfortunately, without an anti-establishment candidate with youth appeal to “rally the troops”, the libertarian vote is a dead letter. If this weren’t the case, Penny would be the governor of Minnesota now, not Pawlenty.
Populists also tend to cluster in groups and demographics that are easy to target-regions, economic strata, racial background, and, most importantly, churches. Libertarians? Not so much. There aren’t really any institutions that attract a broad base of libertarians (as this study classified them).
Also, the nature of their political views naturally make populists much more likely to go to the polls than libertarians. Libertarians are much more politically apathetic than the activist populists.
So, appealing to libertarians isn’t exactly a high priority for most candidates, unless they’re in a place where they need an upset to win or are running as a strong third-party challenger. Thus they aren’t coveted by either the Democrats or the Republicans, who are more concerned about winning the more easily mobilized and reliable populist vote.
Nicq: Looks like Askimet flagged it as spam first time around (!) – I pulled it out of the queue. Hopefully it won’t eat any more comments…
“Anyway, Mark, where would you go? The Green Party? We all saw how well THAT turned out. ;)”
I’d continue voting for Democrats who shared my views on the issues most important to me. But I would no longer identify myself, personally or financially, with a national party whose platform involved the expansion of free trade, more tax cuts, and federally-funded stem cell research (not that I oppose the latter, but if that’s par for the course of the “liberal/libertarian opposition party” of tomorrow, I’m not interested).
I consider myself something of a libertarian on personal freedom issues (against smoking bans, for decriminalization of drugs….even though I consume neither product personally), and would rally to the side of a Democratic Party that rallies to those causes. But given that Democrats are often on the frontlines of expanding the jack-booted nanny state, I’m not confident that the brand of libertarianism that’s ever likely to metamorphisize into the Democratic Party platform if they pursue the voter demographic you suggest, will be something I would find appealing.
And I continue to balk at the premise that 20% of the voting population is indeed “socially liberal and economically conservative”. Upper-income suburbanites, particularly those in the northeast, would be the most likely to fit into this demographic, yet it’s the Republican representatives from those congressional districts (think Chris Shays) who are distancing themselves from Bush by voting against the social program budget cuts that would conceivably be embraced by anyone who considers themselves “economically conservative.” If Shays really believed the “socially liberal/economically conservative” voters of southwestern Connecticut wanted these budget cuts, I suspect he would have voted for them rather than incur the wrath of his party leaders by voting against them. In general, I believe that those who consider themselves “economically conservative” is greatly inflated compared to those who actually ARE economically conservative. Remember, after all, that liberal Illinois Democrat and 1988 Presidential candidate Paul Simon (the bowtie guy) referred to himself as a “fiscal conservative” when his voting record was far from what we would now consider economically conservative.
Even your example of Jesse Ventura strikes me as a self-described economic conservative who isn’t really. And guys like him (moderate libertarians) are pretty much already in the Democratic fold. Most of the non-Democratic voting libertarians would be seem to be Chamber of Commerce-types who, despite their misgivings about GOP war mongering and the possibility of abortion being criminalized, will always cast their ballot for the party promising the biggest tax cut…and that party will always be the Republicans. Perhaps I’m underestimating the size of the demographic you mention, but I’m not willing to see the Democratic Party sacrifice my core issues if the only things America can expect to get out of it is legalized gay marriage and Roe v. Wade being upheld.
“Perhaps I’m underestimating the size of the demographic you mention, but I’m not willing to see the Democratic Party sacrifice my core issues if the only things America can expect to get out of it is legalized gay marriage and Roe v. Wade being upheld.”
How about continued economic growth, balanced budgets, a way out of our coming entitlement nightmare? How about foreign policy that doesn’t kowtow to dictators or bog down our armies in overpriced elective wars? How about real support for science, technology and education?
My ideal President would basically be Bill Clinton, minus his gun control policy, androgenous jackbooted attorney general, and opportunistic statist wife. (Though he could keep the blue dresses and cigars for all I care.)
Really, though, my whole problem is that our spectrum doesn’t make any sense anymore. Is Bush an economic conservative? The budget reports from the Heritage Foundation, the pork explosion and Medicare Part D say he ain’t, unless economic conservative means “cut taxes and proceed to spend your way into the abyss”. Would Kerry have been worse? With a GOP controlled congress, unlikely.
I’m sorry, but if your core issues amount to socialism and isolationism, you can count me out.
Bush lost the city of Peoria but won the county
http://www.ci.peoria.il.us/docs/electioncomm/Results/General/2004%2011-2%20General%20Election%20Summary.TXT
Kerry 24,486
Bush 22,479
Bush Bush won in the County of Peoria
http://www.peoriacounty.org/countyClerk/elecresults/041102/countywideresults-1.htm
Bush 18,572
Kerry 16435
Totals
Bush 41,051
Kerry 40,921