You folks are all falling for a false dichotomy: The great and profound choice between focusing on policy (and somehow magically winning elections because you won a policy debate) and focusing on winning (without standing for any policy in particular). That's crap. I totally agree that compromising on everything in hopes of appearing "moderate" isn't going ot win you any votes. No argument at all. But focusing on policy and fighting for policy outcomes won't win you votes either. Republicans haven't won the last three elections (and yes, it has only been three elections) because they fought for policy outcomes. Nor because they just "decided to win" by sacrificing policy outcomes for votes. The reality is none of the above.

The fundamental understanding that we in the progressive and Democratic communities always fail to reach is that policy outcomes are irrelevant to the average voter. They don't know, and don't want to know, what government does, and don't think what government does is all that important anyway. Whether you have the "right" policies, and fight for them or don't, is of no importance to swing voters. It matters to us, and it matters to our counterparts on the other side, but neither of us decide close elections. 

What matters to swing voters, and thus what decides elections, are the personal characteristics they perceive in candidates, as presented in large part by the media: Whether a candidate is honest, confident, cares about average folks, looks like a trusted icon, talks like the district, and so forth. Pretty much the same things employers think about when hiring someone: Am I comfortable giving this person responsibility and just being around them for the next few years? I know, this sucks, and there are all sorts of negative repercussions. But it's reality, and we simply cannot fight it!!! This is the central principle that Lee Atwater and Michael Deaver and friends discovered with Reagan in 1980 (borrowed in part from Kennedy no doubt). Rove and friends have just refined it to its cynical end.

So the whole debate you are engaged in is kind of moot. Policy vs. winning? Forget it! What Democrats need to do to win is build up their candidates with positive associations rather than tear them down. If someone is a genuinely genteel moderate like Biden, talk about them as a statesman. If a natural progressive firebrand like a Dean, talk up their passion and backbone. The trick is to work with the material you have and win candidate by candidate, NOT with some master strategy across the spectrum, especially one that involves certain policy positions or outcomes.

Posted at January 29, 2006 8:20 PM in response to elections

Actually, the issues landscape in which an election occurs probably matters less than we think, or want it to. Whereas hardcore Dems and hardcore Repubs regularly confirm their choices (which never change) based on the candidates' issue leanings, no one else does. Non or weakly affiliated partisans look much more closely at the personal characteristics of the candidates, and to the extent issues matter, it is in how those issues play up or down the candidates' popular or unpopular characteristics. Put another way, Bush has benefitted from the focus on national security because he is perceived as being a tough SOB (I'd agree with the second part) and decisive. Clinton benefitted from a focus on the economy because he was perceived to care about average Americans and their lot in life. The point is that it is impossible to know what issues will matter in 06 or 08 until we know who the candidates are. Pick the candidates who fit the issue environment, not the other way around, and you'll do better. That's, by the way, why we should have chosen Wes Clark in 04, but that's WAY off topic.

Whereas the wingnuts have a basic weakness in their, ahem, unusual relationship to facts and reality, progressives have a weakness in their unending fondness for policy wonkery. We WANT to discuss issues, which work, which don't, which to talk about and how, what solutions work for social problems, which don't. Blah, blah, blah. In fact, every time conservatives get in trouble they just whip out the "where's your solution" crap and we fall for it (sometimes, as with this "lobbying scandal," we just go ahead and do it to ourselves). The minute we do, the discussion becomes about policy, and swing voters use that as their cue to go back to sleep. We get bored making repeated points, and we are wary of talking in moral terms, about blame. Unfortunately, that's what holds people's attention.  

Posted at January 13, 2006 2:40 PM in response to Shaping the Issue Landscape

The question is actually much more interesting than this. The real question is at a much higher level: Which matters more, fixing the problem (which I suppose would mean having an ethical, un-bought Congress) or acquiring power for progressive politicians? If the former, I'd agree we'll never completely lick it, although tightening the laws would help. But without sounding too cynical, I'd argue the far more important question is the latter. And undoubtedly in my mind we lose ground in that context by aggressively proposing wonky, technical fixes to the lobbying laws. I understand there are a lot of people who earn salaries in order to promote pan-Congress lobbying and campaign finance reform. Perhaps some of them are commenting on this thread. But as a progressive movement we need to move past that. The dynamics of the moment strongly indicate shifting into the wonk mode would be a bad move.

Posted at January 10, 2006 8:46 AM in response to Please, Don't Say "Lobbying Reform"

Absolutely right, but that's that the half of it. The worst part about going down this lobbying reform path is that it removes the whole issue from the moral sphere and places it squarely into the policy wonk world where no normal voters dare tread. Plus it reinforces the Republican hail-mary that this scandal is about both parties, about everyone in Congress.

This is a very unsavvy move by the Dems, but they've been egged on by the grassroots on this one. If we lose this issue, it will be our fault and ours alone. 

Posted at January 9, 2006 8:59 AM in response to Please, Don't Say "Lobbying Reform"

Noooooooooooooo!

No wonky "reform" proposals, please. Why do progressives always, ALWAYS, fall for this? I guess it's our weakness (and Lord knows the other side has them, too). It's our siren calling out from the political rocks: A chance to talk policy! To propose something! How good that makes us feel! How virtuous!

Unfortunately, the political reality is that if congressional Dems start pushing a "reform" agenda, two things happen: First, the notion that "all of Congress -- not just the Republicans -- need to be cleaned up" gets reinforced; and second, we lose our message on the corruption of power, which is what tends to produce power-changing, or power-equalling elections. 

I know it's just boring to hammer DeLay and Cunningham and friends over and over. We're above that. We want to talk about bigger, cleaner things that are farther from the gutter. But resist, people, resist! We still haven't reached the vast majority of the public on the fact that the current REPUBLICAN leadership is corrupt. We need to keep at that message for at least another six months or more. Don't fall for the "we need a proposal" crap this time! We managed to hold off on Bush's Social Security plan and won a huge victory. Let's not blow this one!

Posted at January 6, 2006 10:57 AM in response to The Mantle of Reform

Wow. I mean bloody freakin wow. We've been calling W a moron for so long, it's just breathtaking when we pulls something like this. In a certain, cynical, dangerous, immoral way, the man is a genius. His use of strawmen arguments whenever he's challenged is really pretty amazing (and I'm actually being serious here). His brain seems to just work that way: When confronted, respond angrily to an accusation that's easy to rebut. We all do it from time to time, but the man's facility and imagination in going to that well over and over and over is, well, ingenious. It's also catastrophic that the so-called MSM never calls him on it, of course ...

Posted at January 1, 2006 6:09 PM in response to Logic

Careful with that poll. If you read the fine print, you notice that it was a "random in person interview" poll that specifically did NOT ask about religious or ethnic identity (for security reasons). Keeping in mind that quite a few Iraqis are not available for "in person interviews" (conservative religious women, for example), and the likely tilting of the interview pool toward secular Shiites and Kurds in "safe" areas who are likely to be happy about how things have gone, you've got quite a different story.

A poll with serious design flaws is worse than no poll at all. We really have no idea how and what kind of biases are involved here. 

Posted at December 12, 2005 10:03 AM in response to Iraqi Public Opinion

This post seems silly at first glance, but actually it's a perfect expression of why many swing voters -- who normally pay zero attention to politics -- vote Republican. Amazingly, it really isn't any more complicated than this (and similar constructs that focus on the perceived identity and personal characteristics of candidates).

Posted at December 5, 2005 11:34 AM in response to OFF CENTER...

I haven't had the pleasure of reading the book yet, but it seems to me this question of why the Republicans have won the last few rounds in the national political arena is very easy to overthink. You can tie yourself in knots agonizing over why, when the party has gone so far to the Right, it still manages to beat a Democratic Party that almost exactly reproduces the ideological bent of the electorate. But the answer is really very simple: People don't vote on issues (or ideology). For some reason I don't understand, and I've been at this game for many years now, even our most sophisticated political thinkers find this a very hard mental pill to swallow.

Let me tell you, the Republicans (I used to be one) don't find it hard at all. It comes very naturally to a party that is filled with people who don't believe government really does anything useful, at least in peacetime. If you don't care what government does, why should you care what a politician says about issues?

No, the reason why the Republicans have become so successful these past few cycles is simply because they're better at the GAME of politics than Democrats. They understand how and why people vote, and they exploit that knowledge. While we, the Democrats, continue to try and pound a square peg into a round hole. 

Posted at December 5, 2005 8:00 AM in response to OFF CENTER...

Here here. Excellent bit of counterpoint to the current "we gotta get a message" hysteria (which usually means "we gotta get MY message").

In all fairness, though, I think where the two collide is in presidential candidates. There you have a single candidate who has to "connect with" his/her voters, but you also have the leader of the party, who inevitably is seen by the voters as the spokesperson for the party. So you're going to have friction between the two roles. To be successful at the presidential level, I think, you really need to leave BOTH roles behind and just be yourself. To be comfortable in your own skin and communicate your character.

Anyway, "clarity of message" is not really about the issues. It's about a moral/ethical framework, about making voters understand what we care about and not trying to hide it because it's been demagogued. In most cases, that begins with a presidential candidate (i.e. Ronald Reagan), or a particularly dynamic class of incoming congresspeople, as you note.

Posted at November 29, 2005 11:25 AM in response to Does "Message Clarity" Matter?