Posted on 09/07/2004 1:28:04 PM PDT by Better to Be Lucky Than Good
The Kerry campaign faces political headwinds that make electoral success difficult and yet by all accounts the campaign is doing little to correct itself.
The United States is a nation in the midst of political realignment, and yet the Democratic National Convention that was held in Boston may be the culmination of perhaps the riskiest political maneuver--running an openly left-wing ticket.
Most political theorists suggest that political competition causes the two parties to converge on the center. Bill Clinton's New Democrat themes and George Bush's compassionate conservatism are examples of this. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan's 1980 successful challenge from the Right threw this accepted wisdom out the window. Whatever the case, his election and subsequent reelection represented a sizeable rightward shift in the U.S. electorate.
The last time an unabashed leftward run was tried by a major political party, it was 1972 and George McGovern was the nominee. The results of that political fiasco led to the rise of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the promotion of Southern moderates within the party like Jimmy Carter, Clinton, and Al Gore. It seems that the activist wing of the party believes this formula is no longer applicable.
The National Journal rated Kerry as the most liberal senator of 2003 and his running mate John Edwards was No. 4. Keep in mind that this Senate includes archliberals Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton. Rather than repudiating his leftist past, Kerry was forced during the primaries to accentuate it as a shield against progressives in the party like Howard Dean and insurgents out of the party like Ralph Nader.
Several decades have passed since McGovern's ill-fated presidential bid, and apparently Democrats feel that they can no longer stomach the centrist status quo, in spite of DLC blandishments seeking to cloak Kerry and Edwards in moderate garb.
It's quite a gamble. It was a gamble in 1980, too, but in Reagan's case, at least the "silent majority" was apparently awaiting his arrival. There's no similar sign of liberal unrest in the United States. British authors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge demonstrate in their engaging study of U.S. politics, The Right Nation, that conservatism is the dominant philosophy in U.S. politics today.
Whether leaders in the party have abdicated their duties or are actively trying to push the party over the edge isn't clear. What is clear is that, while the United States is undergoing a significant political realignment, the oldest political party in the United States has nominated a ticket significantly out of step with the beliefs of that electorate. Consider:
-- Nearly nine in 10 people in the United States support requiring welfare recipients to work in order to maintain eligibility. Kerry has voted consistently to oppose this measure.
-- Three-quarters of Americans say that religious organizations should be allowed to participate in taxpayer antipoverty programs. Kerry disagrees.
-- Even though a staggering 85 percent of voters say that a criminal should be punished for killing both a pregnant woman and her unborn child, Kerry refuses to budge from the NARAL-Pro Choice America view.
-- And while 91 percent of Americans see no problem with keeping the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, Kerry sides with the ACLU in opposition.
-- And last, this ticket rejects the public's views on cultural issues like capital punishment. If there is a capital punishment reform afoot in the United States, it is more likely to expand its application to states like Massachusetts and New York rather than restrict it.
After a lifetime career of opposing the death penalty, Kerry has belatedly announced his support for the death penalty for terrorists like Osama bin Laden. Yet even this fails to appreciate capital punishment's almost overwhelming embrace by the U.S. public.
With a lifetime Americans for Democratic Action rating of 92, his record is more liberal than either Walter Mondale or McGovern. And while many Americans may disagree with specific Bush administration policies, the differences in many instances can be transcended. This isn't so with the Democrats of 2004.
Ironically, Democrats and their handmaidens in the East Coast media argue that the party is in its strongest position in decades. As former Majority Leader Dick Armey used to say, "You can't be that wrong by accident." Despite assertions to the contrary, Kerry's party is not united. Survey after survey reveals that Republicans are solidly behind George Bush winning nearly nine out of 10 of their votes.
Kerry's support is significantly less committed with an average of two-thirds of self-described Democrats on board. And tellingly 50 percent of Democrats confidently predict that Kerry will win in November. Also, nearly half of the Democrats surveyed say that the party does a poor or fair job standing up for its traditional positions on such things as helping minorities, aiding the poor, and representing working people.
When you're an insurgent ticket, running against the mainstream, it is essential that you keep your core supporters on board.
Even in 1980 this ticket's agenda would have been out of sync with the center. And notably, the United States today marches onward in a rightward shift that makes such truculence more than just risky; it approaches destructive.
Consider: today's political consensus recognizes that incentives matter with social programs and in the market, that teacher testing and accountability are necessary, that time limits for welfare are essential, that the "era of big government is over," and that severe punishment reduces or eliminates criminal behavior. Finally, the GOP isn't just at parity with the Democrats in terms of numbers; in many of the key battleground states GOP registration is steadily surpassing them, and nationally it's clearly the party on the move in terms of growth.
Today's Democrats don't just disagree with this consensus; the Boston ticket turns the "agree to disagree" principle on its head. But a party which embraces needle-exchange programs, expresses a remarkable level of ambivalence about the exercise of U.S. military might in an age of global terrorism, and is stridently hostile to issues involving faith will have significant hurdles in its quest for electoral success.
Postelection analysis will likely confirm that this year's campaign was stillborn before it ever began. The Democrats' failure to put forward even a pretense of centrism and their sharp veer to the Left has marginalized this presidential ticket and may in fact hasten the realignment already under way.
Horace Cooper is a writer and columnist for several media organizations and is a fellow at the Centre for New Black Leadership.
Leftward tilt? That isn't some gradual slope, it's a dive into a socialist crevasse!
Shhhhhh! Keep it secret. Don't tell them..
bump
Tomorrow Frist is bring up the Flag desecration amendment. Will Kerry and Ecwards show up to vote against it? Stay tuned.d
BTTT
Are Kennedy and Clinton 2 and 3 in this survey?
The results of that political fiasco led to the rise of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the promotion of Southern moderates within the party like Jimmy Carter
So Jimmy Carter is a moderate? Compared to whom?
This headline gives us 40 year old news.
Compared to John Kerry.
Actually based on my memory, at the time he was a moderate in his party (compared to McGovern etc). Hell Kennedy was not as liberal as he is now. Carter seemed to turn more leftward as he aged.
Compared to Brezhnev.
In 2000, the left wing loonies decided that the problem with Gore was that he was to centrist. When they lost even more seats in 2002, they decided that their left-wing looney message just wasn't getting out and if people just understood they would certainly vote for the socialists/liberals. Just recently they decided that screaming the left wing message at the tops of their lungs at every occassion wasn't enough, either; they needed to get downright mean and nasty to win converts.
They will be usint he Muslim model for 'winning' converts by the next election.
I tell you, something's seriously wrong with the Dems when they only manage to slip in one president in 20 years. They cannot learn.
"So Jimmy Carter is a moderate? Compared to whom?"
Heh-heh. Or what. Actually I think it is fair to say he was promoted as a sort of populist, who wasn't beholden to leftwing ideology. In fact of course he turned out to be much worse.
The ground opened up, and the whole Democrat party took a header right into the crack.
(steely)
I think we are in transition. The leftist Dems will stay in their party structure, and some enterprising pol will see that there is an opening in the middle, which Bush is currently exploiting. Evan Bayh and those of his ilk. If a "new Democrat" party formed, and it was serious about excluding the Michael Moore's, while preaching fiscal responsibility, strong defense, and immigration controls, it would overtake the Dems and take the Arnold wing of the GOP, too. It would be good for the country to have the debate between a centrist Dim party and a conservative GOP.
Your words sound eerily prophetic, BoT: next election, the Dems might use the Muslim model.
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