Both prophets of current Democrats are suggesting that Dean isn’t electable in the general election. John Judis took up the argument in Salon last week and Ruy Teixeira posted on Donkey Rising the same essential argument taking to task Jerome Armstrong of MyDD (and an early supporter and inspiration to ArchPundit) and Tapped who are confused because Judis argues that by only appealing to the voters that EDM (buy at the bottom) say are increasing Dean is destined to lose. As a side note, I can’t recommend highly enough the most recent issue of the American Political Science Review with an article by Norman Schofeld and Gary Miller who make an incredibly well argued point about how parties shift over time on two axes of economics and social issues.
Ruy gets it right (obviously, he wrote the book with Judis) when he says,
DR is pretty familiar with the EDM thesis and can assure TAPPED and MyDD that there is no contradiction. The key point is that political leadership involves building coalitions that reach outside your base and absorb independent and moderate voters who are leaning your way. Clinton’s strength was being able to synthesize the views of professionals with those of older elements of the Democratic coalition and present that synthesis in a way that made enough independent and moderate voters feel it was safe to vote Democratic. That includes the white working class and culturally conservative voters Dean is likely to have the most trouble with.
Dean will have an extra barrier I think, but I do disagree that it is fatal. Why?
Ironically, TNR’s &c makes the point I would in the post STYLE POINTS (note to Ruy–they have permalinks!).
Once you realize that’s the question, then Howard Dean’s "visceral longing" strategy doesn’t look like such a disaster. There are, after all, only two ways to satisfy the party’s left-leaning base. The first is on the level of policy–that is, taking liberal positions. The second is on the level of tone–that is, angrily denouncing the president with overheated rhetoric. The beauty of the latter is that it’s essentially contentless: It satisfies the base without locking you into any particular policy positions, meaning you’re free to fill in the details of those positions as you see fit. And in Dean’s case, those details happen to be pretty centrist (with the exception of his opposition to the war; more on that below): He’s a relative moderate on gun control, the death penalty, trade, and fiscal matters.
Now you could certainly argue, as Brownstein does, that Dean’s anger will scare away some swing voters. But, again, the question isn’t whether it scares away swing voters. The question is, how many? And, any way you slice it, you probably scare away fewer swing voters by moving to the left of them tonally than you do by moving to the left of them ideologically.
At the same time, it becomes much, much easier to tack to the center after you win the nomination if you’ve appealed to the left through style rather than substance. Whereas someone like Dick Gephardt would risk alienating his blue-collar supporters when he began waffling on an issue like trade to lure moderates in the general election, Dean could further moderate his policies without any risk of defection on the left, since his support on the left had little to do with ideology in the first place.
I’ll add one bit that Tapped touched on yesterday. The rank and file Democrats are angry. I’m normally a DLC guy who urges respect for interventionist foreign policy, balanced budgets, market based regulation and social welfare policies, and respect for cultural norms while not giving up a committment to human rights.
And quite frankly, I’m pissed. I’m angry at a party that has rolled over for a President that is bankrupting the country, has no respect for civil liberties, no respect for a professionalized bureaucracy whether it be intelligence or the environment, has hampered our relationship with a number of allies and may yet bring down Tony Blair, and is passing unfunded mandates out like they are cotton candy. And I’m especially angry that my party continues to try bipartisanship when Bush is clearly not interested.
It is either time to fight the man’s policies or roll over and let him scratch our tummies. Lieberman would have us do just that and Kucinich would have us meditate and try and levitate. Dean motivates people like me in a way that hasn’t happened in a long time.
But to the point of Dean’s electability, It isn’t as clear cut as Judis and Teixeira try to make it. They assume that Dean is to ideologically to the left–when he really isn’t. But they do argue that the median voter theorem is essentially correct with the best strategy to get close to the middle of the electorate as possible without alienating the base. Dean is pretty close to dead center for most Americans on most issues. The only two issues he sticks out on are Iraq and civil unions. I’m not sure civil unions are a hindrance to Dean because he chose not to pursue actual marriage as the rule. And Iraq isn’t clear cut given he isn’t a peacenik like Kucinich who has stolen the Natural Law Party’s idea for a Department of Peace.
Some conservative bloggers have suggested Dean may or may not be the preferred candidate of Republicans, but that assumes the issue is Iraq in isolation. Nothing else about Dean is far to the left.
Now, if the economy is good and Iraq is the big issue, he loses, but so do the other candidates. If the economy is not so good the salient issue probably isn’t Iraq, but the economy and there Dean is able to do exactly what Clinton did by making moderates feel safe voting for Democrats who advocate balanced budgets.
Dean’s challenge is to return to the middle during the general election campaign. While he doesn’t have to move to the center on policy because he is essentially there, he has to change the language to appeal to the ever fickle press corps that often paints candidates with caricatures and to moderate swing voters who aren’t paying attention right now. He can still be strong and assertive, but he has to hit issues that appeal to both groups.
Will civil unions concern people? Yes, but a talented candidate can be forthright about the circumstances and the fair nature of the policy. Is Iraq going to cost some votes? Probably, but how many of those votes were winnable anyway? Can Dean build a coalition of more traditional Democrats and the emerging blocks by appealing to the center on policy and appealing to left on anger? I won’t guarantee it, but I think he can. And more important, the field isn’t producing candidates that are going to do much better with white working class candidates or culturally conservative voters. Kerry, no. Lieberman, maybe but he alienates many Democrats. Gephardt? Not likely from what I’ve seen in St. Louis in recent years. Kucinich? I vote Green. Graham? Maybe, but the primaries are tough for him. Edwards–probably, but has a long way to go to win over primary voters.
It is entirely possible that the press will portray Dean as something close to a radical leftist if the meme gets started and stays that way and he’ll lose if that is the case. Currently, the primary people reinforcing that erroneous perception are the DLC and Teixiera and Judis.
ArchPundit