Sorta libertarian, sorta conservative, never poltically correct either way, dedicated to sarcasm and a refusal to grow up. That would be me.
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Friday, November 05, 2004
Why The Democrats Lost
Okay, here’s why I think the Democrats lost. I’m going to try to keep ideology and any form of gloating out of this…even though I feel a big part of the reason Bush won is that his worldview is far closer to that of average Americans than Kerry’s is. Read if you like, accept what you want. Yes, in many ways these reflect the same mistakes the GOP made in 1996. Indeed, that’s probably what helped me spot them.
1) Hatred of the incumbent. The Democrats let this take over their thought process to the extent that they seemed to believe everyone shared their views. The fact is half the people who voted in 2000 cast their ballots for this man. When you criticize him on the visceral level that the left did, many of these people took it as implied criticism of themselves, for being dumb enough to vote for this guy. In this manner, the Bush-haters helped him shore up his base. The personal antipathy many Bush-haters developed for Bush supporters also shored up the beliefs of the latter while turning off the swing voters.
2) Underestimation of your opponent. In a way, this ties into reason 1. But not entirely. Reagan was nowhere near as hated as Bush was. Yet he was also underestimated. The evidence that he is more than a lightweight (his MBA, his six years as governor of Texas, indeed his Presidency) was dismissed, and so was the idea that, like Reagan, he had some sharp and competent people around him. Karl Rove may be the sole exception, and he was demonized. This of course played right into his hands. He could feed paranoia about him doing something dirty and make his opponents look one way, while either he or someone else did something clean and sharp in another direction.
3) Poor choice of candidate. The Democrats needed a Bill Clinton-type candidate to beat Bush this time around. Instead, they picked Mike Dukakis without the administrative experience. In a time where everyone would agree that leadership is crucial, they picked a man with not only no leadership experience, but a record of vacillation on key issues. That alone may have made the difference. This ties into reasons 1 and 2. There was an assumption that any nominee would beat Bush and electability was not a consideration.
Meanwhile, the Republicans struck back in the South. Is there a Democratic Senator or Governor left down there that makes a viable Presidential nominee? The record has held: The last Democratic presidential candidate not from the South or a “border state” to win was John F. Kennedy. Before that it was FDR, and before him Woodrow Wilson. In the process of giving the northeastern liberals a turn, the Democratic Party has gutted its only proven source of Presidential contenders.
4) Complete inability to understand, let alone fracture, the current Republican coalition. Its all well and good to snicker about rednecks and fundamentalist Christians, but they are only a part of the coalition. “Small-l” libertarians are an equally important component, though one regularly ignored by the Democratic Party. These two groups are fundamentally divided on many issues, yet the Democratic Party failed to even attempt to exploit these differences. The “Patriot Act” comes to mind, there is a strong segment of the GOP with very sharp reservations about it. Yet the Democratic Party was not only complicit in its passage and implementation, it added some of the more objectionable (to the libertarian Republicans) provisions.
Before Democratic Underground underwent its meltdown and switched over to “members only” (they are back, disgustingly enough), one poster suggested that the Democratic Party abandon its support for gun control. He immediately faced a barrage of sarcastic suggestions that they also abandon some far more central party positions. But in fact, this would be an absolutely brilliant approach. It’s one of the things that glues the libertarian Republicans to the GOP, even though many Republicans are squishy on the issue as well.
But I digress. The religious-libertarian alliance was crafted by Ronald Reagan and held together by his de facto policy that government should neither restrain nor affirm religion. It’s tenuous at best, but lately its best ally has been the Democratic Party.
5) The personal loyalty of the sharpest party professionals to the Clinton family. For the most part, they sat this one out. This helped Kerry get nominated, as the big guns weren’t working for anyone else. In the general however, that meant he was badly outgunned. Forget about Rove, who has never been on the losing side in an election. There’s probably five to ten strategists on the Bush side who were far better than anyone actively working for Kerry.
6) Misallocation of resources. The focus on young voters was misplaced. They didn’t turn out in much larger than normal numbers, and they only leaned slightly pro-Kerry when they did. He wasn’t the kind of candidate who was going to appeal to them, and it didn’t help that his kids came off haughty and aloof while the Bush twins came off as normal. The registration push, if anything, backfired. They thought they had all these new voters, but most had not registered for a reason and there were embarrassing scandals (ACT sending felons door to door, an NAACP official condoning the exchange of crack cocaine for what turned out to be faked registrations, etc…) that the Republicans were more than happy to jump on.
Okay, here’s why I think the Democrats lost. I’m going to try to keep ideology and any form of gloating out of this…even though I feel a big part of the reason Bush won is that his worldview is far closer to that of average Americans than Kerry’s is. Read if you like, accept what you want. Yes, in many ways these reflect the same mistakes the GOP made in 1996. Indeed, that’s probably what helped me spot them.
1) Hatred of the incumbent. The Democrats let this take over their thought process to the extent that they seemed to believe everyone shared their views. The fact is half the people who voted in 2000 cast their ballots for this man. When you criticize him on the visceral level that the left did, many of these people took it as implied criticism of themselves, for being dumb enough to vote for this guy. In this manner, the Bush-haters helped him shore up his base. The personal antipathy many Bush-haters developed for Bush supporters also shored up the beliefs of the latter while turning off the swing voters.
2) Underestimation of your opponent. In a way, this ties into reason 1. But not entirely. Reagan was nowhere near as hated as Bush was. Yet he was also underestimated. The evidence that he is more than a lightweight (his MBA, his six years as governor of Texas, indeed his Presidency) was dismissed, and so was the idea that, like Reagan, he had some sharp and competent people around him. Karl Rove may be the sole exception, and he was demonized. This of course played right into his hands. He could feed paranoia about him doing something dirty and make his opponents look one way, while either he or someone else did something clean and sharp in another direction.
3) Poor choice of candidate. The Democrats needed a Bill Clinton-type candidate to beat Bush this time around. Instead, they picked Mike Dukakis without the administrative experience. In a time where everyone would agree that leadership is crucial, they picked a man with not only no leadership experience, but a record of vacillation on key issues. That alone may have made the difference. This ties into reasons 1 and 2. There was an assumption that any nominee would beat Bush and electability was not a consideration.
Meanwhile, the Republicans struck back in the South. Is there a Democratic Senator or Governor left down there that makes a viable Presidential nominee? The record has held: The last Democratic presidential candidate not from the South or a “border state” to win was John F. Kennedy. Before that it was FDR, and before him Woodrow Wilson. In the process of giving the northeastern liberals a turn, the Democratic Party has gutted its only proven source of Presidential contenders.
4) Complete inability to understand, let alone fracture, the current Republican coalition. Its all well and good to snicker about rednecks and fundamentalist Christians, but they are only a part of the coalition. “Small-l” libertarians are an equally important component, though one regularly ignored by the Democratic Party. These two groups are fundamentally divided on many issues, yet the Democratic Party failed to even attempt to exploit these differences. The “Patriot Act” comes to mind, there is a strong segment of the GOP with very sharp reservations about it. Yet the Democratic Party was not only complicit in its passage and implementation, it added some of the more objectionable (to the libertarian Republicans) provisions.
Before Democratic Underground underwent its meltdown and switched over to “members only” (they are back, disgustingly enough), one poster suggested that the Democratic Party abandon its support for gun control. He immediately faced a barrage of sarcastic suggestions that they also abandon some far more central party positions. But in fact, this would be an absolutely brilliant approach. It’s one of the things that glues the libertarian Republicans to the GOP, even though many Republicans are squishy on the issue as well.
But I digress. The religious-libertarian alliance was crafted by Ronald Reagan and held together by his de facto policy that government should neither restrain nor affirm religion. It’s tenuous at best, but lately its best ally has been the Democratic Party.
5) The personal loyalty of the sharpest party professionals to the Clinton family. For the most part, they sat this one out. This helped Kerry get nominated, as the big guns weren’t working for anyone else. In the general however, that meant he was badly outgunned. Forget about Rove, who has never been on the losing side in an election. There’s probably five to ten strategists on the Bush side who were far better than anyone actively working for Kerry.
6) Misallocation of resources. The focus on young voters was misplaced. They didn’t turn out in much larger than normal numbers, and they only leaned slightly pro-Kerry when they did. He wasn’t the kind of candidate who was going to appeal to them, and it didn’t help that his kids came off haughty and aloof while the Bush twins came off as normal. The registration push, if anything, backfired. They thought they had all these new voters, but most had not registered for a reason and there were embarrassing scandals (ACT sending felons door to door, an NAACP official condoning the exchange of crack cocaine for what turned out to be faked registrations, etc…) that the Republicans were more than happy to jump on.