Report to Dems: Don't Tilt Too Far Left

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MaxFisher

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601645_pf.html


washingtonpost.com

Report Warns Democrats Not to Tilt Too Far Left
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 7, 2005; A07

The liberals' hope that Democrats can win back the presidency by drawing sharp ideological contrasts and energizing the partisan base is a fantasy that could cripple the party's efforts to return to power, according to a new study by two prominent Democratic analysts.

In the latest shot in a long-running war over the party's direction -- an argument turned more passionate after Democrat John F. Kerry's loss to President Bush last year -- two intellectuals who have been aligned with former president Bill Clinton warn that the only way back to victory is down the center.

Democrats must "admit that they cannot simply grow themselves out of their electoral dilemmas," wrote William A. Galston and Elaine C. Kamarck, in a report released yesterday. "The groups that were supposed to constitute the new Democratic majority in 2004 simply failed to materialize in sufficient number to overcome the right-center coalition of the Republican Party."

Since Kerry's defeat, some Democrats have urged that the party adopt a political strategy more like one pursued by Bush and his senior adviser, Karl Rove -- which emphasized robust turnout of the party base rather than relentless, Clinton-style tending to "swing voters."

But Galston and Kamarck, both of whom served in the Clinton White House, said there are simply not enough left-leaning voters to make this a workable strategy. In one of their more potentially controversial findings, the authors argue that the rising numbers and influence of well-educated, socially liberal voters in the Democratic Party are pulling the party further from most Americans.

On defense and social issues, "liberals espouse views diverging not only from those of other Democrats, but from Americans as a whole. To the extent that liberals now constitute both the largest bloc within the Democratic coalition and the public face of the party, Democratic candidates for national office will be running uphill."
Galston and Kamarck -- whose work was sponsored by Third Way, a group working with Senate Democrats on centrist policy ideas -- are critical of three other core liberal arguments:

· They warn against overreliance on a strategy of solving political problems by "reframing" the language by which they present their ideas, as advocated by linguist George Lakoff of the University of California at Berkeley: "The best rhetoric will fail if the public rejects the substance of a candidate's agenda or entertains doubts about his integrity."

· They say liberals who count on rising numbers of Hispanic voters fail to recognize the growing strength of the GOP among Hispanics, as well as the growing weakness of Democrats with white Catholics and married women.

· They contend that Democrats who hope the party's relative advantages on health care and education can vault them back to power "fail the test of political reality in the post-9/11 world." Security issues have become "threshold" questions for many voters, and cultural issues have become "a prism of candidates' individual character and family life," Galston and Kamarck argue.
Their basic thesis is that the number of solidly conservative Republican voters is substantially larger that the reliably Democratic liberal voter base. To win, the argument goes, Democrats must make much larger inroads among moderates than the GOP.

Galston, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, and Kamarck, a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, in 1989 wrote the influential paper, "The Politics of Evasion," which helped set the stage for Clinton's presidential bid and the prominent role of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. In some ways, the report released yesterday showed how difficult the debate is to resolve.

Their recommendations are much less specific than their detailed analysis of the difficulties facing the Democratic Party.

They suggest that Democratic presidential candidates replicate Clinton's tactics in 1992, when he broke with the party's liberal base by approving the execution of a semi-retarded prisoner, by challenging liberal icon Jesse L. Jackson and by calling for an end to welfare "as we know it."
 
I disagree with that article. I think the Democrats need to stop being wishy-washy, show some backbone and offer voters a clear alternative to the Republicans. A growing number of people are getting sick of what the Bush administration is doing to this country, and they need to take advantage of that.
 
I agree entirely, I think that the best way is for the progressive community to follow through on it's threats against the DNC, Kos lead the way!
 
The Democrats are not a left wing party, with the possible exception of social issues like abortion.
 
A_Wanderer said:
Social issues are issues of individual liberties that do not fall on the right/left dichotomy.

In your opinion...maybe.

But favouring legalised abortion on demand is generally seen as a left wing position.
 
blah fucking blah.

who here was in a coma the last two Presidential elections?

One was an absolute majority Democractic victory (popular vote) and another the most ballots ever cast for a losing candidate, Kerry was thousands, not millions of votes from victory. The boneheads might have you think this was a 77-0 victory ala the New England Patriots playign Temple University in football. Give us all a fucking break.

You'd think this was fucking MOndale and Dukakis.

84, Mondale and 88 Dukakis asskickings were followed by two consecutive Democrat wins in the Pres. elections.

Doesn't mean anything. Teh voice against the right wing is loud, it's just not united and may not ever be, as narrow minded to be so united to be against the "fags", or some other bullshit issue.

Maybe they should take up an issue against those who eat the carcasses of hooved footed animals. The honor of Leviticus should be upheld!!!!!

Fuck all the noise.
 
Not intrinsically left wing. I think that the dichotomy between right and left is more about the role of government more than particular issues.

If we are going to divide left and right by issues such as social freedoms or foreign policy then most people will be put on the outer.

Conservative, Progressive, Libertarian, Anarcho-Socialist etc. are all different political ideologies that can usually be grouped right / left even though they have different positions on issues.
 
The dichotomy between left and right in the UNITED STATES is almost completely socially driven, with all due respect I am not convinced you could appreciate this, you as an outsider or even some coastal Americans. To me it is more than apparent, painfully obvious even.

The people deciding issues of note (in the US), live in the areas of the country not driven by pop culture issues or even popular political problems. It's mostly a question of "morality". It's a "God" issue.
 
Thats the culture wars, a topic which emerges often enough here; and in practically every single part I fall down on the side of the "leftist intelligencia" ~ reproductive rights, censorship, teaching of creationism in schools etc. ~ benefit of a post-Christian society I suppose. The fact that there are political blocs that attract voters and that these blocs are broadly centrist in position should not alter the actual definitions of what constitutes what.

Judging by the actions of this administration and quite a few poltical players the American right stands for protectionism, big government and social engineering. A few things that again show how utterly useless the right / left dichotomy is.

The terms have different meanings depending on where you are talking about. Conservative can describe a Tory, Republican, Mullah or man with bomb strapped to his chest depending on what politics is being discussed and by whom.
 
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Yes sir, I most certainly agree.

In the context of American politics, you cannot seperate the dichotomy of left vs right from the social aspects, while the clinical deifinitons are different and transcend this, I was unde the impression we were talking American politics.

Sorry if I was out of turn.
 
but one last thing, i am partaking of the bourbon of choice tonight, and I read further up on the thread that your conversation was more or less with financeguy.

So excuse me for that.
 
I think the Left/Right Dichotomy in the US stopped being about the role of government a long time ago, although plenty of lip service is played to it. It's morphed into whether big government and tax dollars are going to support your interests or mine. Both sides want government when it suits their interests; neither side wants it interfering when it doesn't.
 
I think the Democratic Party should stop seeking a platform through focus groups and telephone surveys and start standing up for what they believe to be right. I think that's their biggest problem.

Melon
 
U2DMfan said:
blah fucking blah.

who here was in a coma the last two Presidential elections?

One was an absolute majority Democractic victory (popular vote) and another the most ballots ever cast for a losing candidate, Kerry was thousands, not millions of votes from victory. The boneheads might have you think this was a 77-0 victory ala the New England Patriots playign Temple University in football. Give us all a fucking break.

You'd think this was fucking MOndale and Dukakis.

84, Mondale and 88 Dukakis asskickings were followed by two consecutive Democrat wins in the Pres. elections.

Doesn't mean anything. Teh voice against the right wing is loud, it's just not united and may not ever be, as narrow minded to be so united to be against the "fags", or some other bullshit issue.

Maybe they should take up an issue against those who eat the carcasses of hooved footed animals. The honor of Leviticus should be upheld!!!!!

Fuck all the noise.

The Democrats have not had a President receive the majority of the popular vote since 1976.

In the 2004 election, Bush won by 3,012,171 votes in the popular vote.
 
STING2 said:


The Democrats have not had a President receive the majority of the popular vote since 1976.

In the 2004 election, Bush won by 3,012,171 votes in the popular vote.

I think he was referring to Gore winning the popular vote over Bush and worded it wrong.
 
STING2 said:


The Democrats have not had a President receive the majority of the popular vote since 1976.

In the 2004 election, Bush won by 3,012,171 votes in the popular vote.


all the latter is, is a talking point for those who love to recite talking points. Never mind for 3 consecutive elections the Dems had the most votes, period. That's what it takes to win most state elections, a simple majority.

In the United States we use the Electoral College.
The difference between that election was any one state with the adequate number of electoral votes that made the difference. Ohio, Forida, Missouri, whichever one, choose one.

So look at the margin of victory in any one of those states, and it is thousands, not millions.

So as I said, thousands, not millions from victory.

The whole point was, you'd think the Dems were getting flogged liek never before, the truth is they are two narrow state elections from 4 consecutive Presidentail wins. That is the truth. That the country is fairly evenly divided overall. And the Dems have every bit as much of a chance in 2008 as the Reps if not better.
 
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The problem is that Democrats try to sell Clinton's political ideas but don't have his political skills. Kerry and Gore certainly didn't. Gore actually won the popular vote in 2000 but he lost the electoral vote.
 
U2DMfan said:



all the latter is, is a talking point for those who love to recite talking points. Never mind for 3 consecutive elections the Dems had the most votes, period. That's what it takes to win most state elections, a simple majority.

In the United States we use the Electoral College.
The difference between that election was any one state with the adequate number of electoral votes that made the difference. Ohio, Forida, Missouri, whichever one, choose one.

So look at the margin of victory in any one of those states, and it is thousands, not millions.

So as I said, thousands, not millions from victory.

The whole point was, you'd think the Dems were getting flogged liek never before, the truth is they are two narrow state elections from 4 consecutive Presidentail wins. That is the truth. That the country is fairly evenly divided overall. And the Dems have every bit as much of a chance in 2008 as the Reps if not better.

The margin of victory in any state in any election is rarely in the millions. Bush won Florida by half a million votes. Bush won Ohio by 118,000 votes. Bush won Missouri by 200,000 votes. These states were not close. States like Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Iowa, and New Mexico were close states where victory was decided by less than 10,000 votes.

The "Red States" are gaining in Electoral Votes and will continue to in the coming in elections which makes Republican victory more likely. The Blue States are losing people and electoral votes. The Republicans have gained considerable ground in "Blue States" like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.

The 2004 election was the clearest and strongest victory for any candidate since 1988. It is the first time a president received more than 50% of the popular vote since 1988. Since World War II, the Democrats have only received 50% or more of the popular vote in just two elections, 1964 and 1976.

In addition, the Republicans gained seats in the house in Senate in the 2004 election, something neither party has been able to do in an incumbent presidential election for decades.

If John McCain is the Republican candidate in 2008, the democrats might as well concede the election.
 
I'd like to see the democratic party open up a can of whoopass....

but it doesn't seem to be happening, I agree....... :shrug:
 
Anyway fuck Clinton's ideas, he wasn't much of a Democrat in my view. He had the gift of the gab but there's no future in trying to copy his agenda.

(all of this quite independent of the lewinsky thing, which I truly could care less about).
 
STING2 said:



The 2004 election was the clearest and strongest victory for any candidate since 1988.

Just because a candidate does not receive more than 50% of the popular vote does not mean he didn't have a clear and strong victory. Clinton's re-election in 1996 was certainly a clear and strong victory, with a landslide win in the Electoral College and a far greater margin of victory over his closest opponent (Dole) than Bush had over Kerry in 2004.
 
phanan said:


Just because a candidate does not receive more than 50% of the popular vote does not mean he didn't have a clear and strong victory. Clinton's re-election in 1996 was certainly a clear and strong victory, with a landslide win in the Electoral College and a far greater margin of victory over his closest opponent (Dole) than Bush had over Kerry in 2004.

Take out Perot and you have a different picture. There was no strong third party candidate the last two elections.
 
verte76 said:


Perhaps. But others must want Dean in there or he wouldn't have gotten the top spot in the first place.

Me thinks you are forgetting the fact that the part was trying to get Dean to support Kerry. A deal was cut, I am sure.
 
I'm not sure that Hillary ever really stood a reasonable chance anyway.
 
As far as I'm concerned the Democratic Party has never been particularly leftist. The most left-wing they've ever been was probably the New Deal era. Much of the New Deal was a total rip-off of the philosophy of Socialist leader Eugene Debs.
 
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