Democratic (Party) Direction

The problem with a consultant-driven overreliance on polling data is that it is predicated on the assumption that nothing will happen to jar public opinion out of its current grooves. As Elaine Kamarck, a top advisor in the Clinton-Gore White House and a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, argued, "These guys [the consultants] just don't get it. They don't understand that in politics strength is better than weakness. And a political party that is always the namby-pamby 'me too' party is a party that isn't going to get anyplace."

Kamarck also shrewdly pointed out that if leading Democrats follow the consultants and abdicate the field on the NSA spying issue (Hillary Clinton, please call your office), "They're going to leave the critique open to the far left. And that will exacerbate two problems the Democrats have: one, that they look too far out of the mainstream, and the other, that they don't believe in anything."

"If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."

The key word there is "consider". Yes, why shouldn't Congress at least consider it? No one except die-hard Republicans would probably disagree with that. But that's still a ways from saying, yes, he should be impeached.

Kamarck's analysis is self-contradictory. How could the Dems simultaneously be "too far out of the mainstream" and not "believe in anything"?

Just like last year -

Carville went on to point out that on the day the U.S. Census Bureau announced an increase in poverty and millions more Americans lacking health care, what did Kerry do? "The event they did," said Carville, "was credit-card debt . . . because someone in a focus group must have said something."

because different people can dislike the Dems for different reasons? I don't see anything contradictory in that statement - she isn't saying people simultaneously hold both positions (altho, that too is possible - people pass contradictory judgments all the time). The public is obviously not monolothic in its thinking.

It seems that Kamarck's basic argument is that the moderate Dems shouldn't be afraid of embracing issues that seem "lefty" because if they don't then the leftists will embrace them, make a lot of noise about it, and basically be seen as the voice of the party, which will reinforce the perception that the Dems are out of the mainstream. And meanwhile, the moderates will stand around looking weak and conflicted as they hem and haw and beat around the bush, which will reinforce the perception that they don't stand for anything.

Unfortunately, this scenario is not implausible. A lot of the blame for this should lie with the news media, which tends to prefer confrontation and controversy over subtlety and nuance - but the Dems still need to figure out how to deal with it. But I don't think the Dems should give up the ability to pick their battles. If they let the GOP and the news media dictate the playing field, then they've already lost. I think the Dems need to identify the issues that they want to stake their campaigns on and force the media to acknowledge those issues. If they don't think that wiretap spying is the right issue, then I think they need to figure out how to change the topic of conversation.

This is exactly right. You guys need to stop talking about "ideas" and platforms and the like as if they mattered! As I said upthread you need an amiable demon of boundless charisma – a Nixon, Clinton, a Reagan – who can look citizens in the eye, convince them that their mother was a man, and lock their votes for the next election.

This is exactly right. You guys need to stop talking about "ideas" and platforms and the like as if they mattered! As I said upthread you need an amiable demon of boundless charisma

Wrong! Once again, this is kicking the can down the road. Yes, the charismatic demon is very important, but you can't conjure him out of thin air. Ideas and platforms don't matter, attitudes do. Demons are charismatic, because they have the right attitudes or know how to simulate them. It's very important to find candidates who come as close as possible to fitting the bill, but the attitude also has to be expressed in the party's language and programs and supporters as well. When the right succeeds at taking down candidates by comparing them to their less attitude-appropriate fellow-travelers (which the GOP is currently trying to do to everyone prominent in the party), you have a problem that even a charismatic devil may not be able to solve.

"Republicans have a post-9/11 view of the world. And Democrats have a pre-9/11 view of the world," Rove told Republican activists. "That doesn’t make them unpatriotic, not at all. But it does make them wrong — deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."

from http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10946712/

I don't think that nitpicking the Republicans on specifics of the "War on Terror" is a winning strategy for the Dems. The wiretap spying issue would fall into this category. Yes, Congress has an obligation to investigate the legal justification of this, but I don't think that Dem candidates should seize on it as their road to victory in November.

or say that the current group in charge has made us far weaker as a nation, has betrayed our trust, etc.

no! that just sounds weak. it's asking someone else to take care of the problem (message: because we can't on our own). also, as above, you need to let people draw conclusions, not hand them over asking that they be accepted.

and where is your fucking memory, Kerry VOTED FOR THE INVASION OF IRAQ, that's what screwed him (among other things, but in the War on Terror(tm) that was his real achilles heel). He didn't say he wouldn't have invaded Iraq, he said he would've invaded it BETTER. Duh.

when has this ever worked? When has one side putting out info and letting folks decide worked better than the other side deliberately and/or disingeniously pushing the other side of it with an explicit conclusion? i think this is way too simple and expects way too much of most folks who can't be bothered to pay attention to any of this stuff.

it does not. One of Kerry's problems is that he WOULDN'T say this. He wouldn't come out & say the obvious, and ran against a guy and an entire set-up which had no problem is repeatedly reinforcing their version of it. It is not a sign of weakness to say that we've been fucked over for a while now, we're worse off than we were before, and new people need to get in there to fix the damage.

It's a hell of a lot more compelling to make your complete case, conclusions included.

Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo,

i thought that was a GOOD idea, since it seemed like something they could just stand back from and watch the republicans thrash about against the florida court system.

patriots, company men, churchgoers -- people who really want to belong to the mainstream. people who use the phrase "good old-fashioned" a lot.

I dunno, that splash page reads pretty much just like Kerry's rhetoric.

hahaha it's statements like that that if not changed soon will result in another 500 post thread in 2009 on 'A New, New Democratic Party Direction'. When American voters who consider abortion and homosexuality to be big issues are considered fringe fundamentalists whose vote SHOULDN'T EVEN BE WANTED it shouldn't be a surprise when you lose elections. You're saying that at LEAST 33% of the country should be ignored and their votes not even desired by the Democratic party. It's like you're trying to polarize people and lose elections.

At a cost, son. I don't give out my golden internet wisdom for mere conversation.

At a cost, son. I don't give out my golden internet wisdom for mere conversation.

Begala told a great Bill Clinton story -- Begala and Carville were going on about how awful they thought the 2004 Dem Convention was, largely because the Kerry campaign insisted on "nothing negative" in the speeches.

Well apparently Bill Clinton didn't much buy this idea, and prepared a pretty strongly anti-Bush speech anyway. At the last minute, he's waiting to go on, Begala at his side, and this "dweeby kid" from the Kerry campaing comes up and says "Mr. President, you can't give this speech. It's too negative." Begala is fuming, but Clinton just calmly says, "That's alright son, I think it'll work out just fine. Run along now."

My own point that I like to add is that you have to make sure you have people other than your candidate do all the dirty work and savaging. Bush himself always came across as comfortable and positive. He might jab at Kerry, but he'd do it with a smile. It was everyone else who did the real savaging. And admittedly it was a brilliant move to get a Democrat (as it were) to deliver the harshest speech of all.

Meanwhile, Kerry was inconsistent -- sometimes trying to play "positive" and then sometimes attacking Bush but falling flat and coming off as cranky.

Considering that political campaigns are nothing but marketing I think the major players are stuck in a button-down 1960s ad agency frame of mind. Where are the Chiat/Weiden/Saachis (not to mention the Putney Swopes)?