Election Follies
Jane Galt has a fine (and typically fun) analysis of why the Democrats are suffering electorally — and why things might get worse for them. Here’s the important bit:
The Democrats, on the other hand, are a veritable festival of interest groups: unions, teachers, minorities, feminists, gay groups, environmentalists, etc. Each of these groups has a litmus test without which they will not ratify a candidate: unfettered support for abortion, against vouchers, against ANWAR drilling, whatever. A lot of groups means a lot of litmus tests, because with the possible exception of the teachers, no one group is powerful enough to swing an election by themselves.
This causes two problems. First, it drags the party platform marginally farther to the left than the Republican platform is to the right, which in a 50/50 nation is bad news, and it narrows the well of political talent. At the local level this doesn’t matter, since districts go reliably for one party or another, but nationally it’s a problem, which is why the Democrats are struggling to hold onto the senate and the presidency. It took a politician of the skill and charm of Bill Clinton to make it work.
Left unsaid is that by 1992, Democrats would have nominated “a small bag of live ferrets,” if they thought it could end the 12-year Republican hold on the White House.
That’s not to say that Bush has the 2004 election in the, uh, bag. But Democrats should pay close attention to what Megan/Jane has to say.
And so should you.
Right information, wrong interpretation. It’s true that liberals seem to value the expressive value of opinion or protest over the governing value of compromise; that’s why liberals were Clinton’s worst enemy on many issues until 1995. But there’s no evidence that this has driven the Democratic Party to the left; actually, it’s driven the Dems to the center, where the party has been for a decade now. Does anyone really believe that the Democratic Party is more liberal now than it was, say, when Tip O’Neill was Speaker? No, the clash of interests may sometimes lead to torpor, but not radicalism.
The demise of liberal and moderate wings of the Republican Party, though, has been dramatic. No Nelson Rockefellers anymore. Not even any Richard Nixons. Could it be that the single issue GOP groups — pro-lifers, anti-integrationists, tax cutters, anti-regulation folks — have driven moderates from their party?
Let’s put a to rest the lie that Nixon was a Conservative. He was a socialist. He was hated by the left because he didn’t take his orders from Moscow like the socialists in the Democrat party.
And the Democrats did get a “bag of ferrets” to run 1992. The bag’s name is H. Ross Perot. Without Perot, Clinton would still be riding around Arkansas trolling for trollops.
Tough Dem,
I’d love to be able to agree with you — Whomever knows, I’m not a big fan of the Republicans, either. However, your argument doesn’t pass muster.
Why not?
Because the Democrats lost the White House, the Senate, the House, a majority of governorships, and most of the statehouses.
Parties who have alienated the center, as you claim, don’t score such impressive wins.
– Does anyone really believe that the Democratic Party is more liberal now than it was, say, when Tip O’Neill was Speaker? –
Not dealing w/our generations who grew up under it. You’re dealing w/the millenials who’ve been attacked on home soil.
They were babies then. And the older ones are fighting now. You’ve been paying attention to the spawn of the Berserkelys, haven’t you? They don’t like the idea of abortion. More “tolerant” on other topics, but not abortion.
And black tail-end Gen Yers are more open to vouchers.
Stephen,
Point taken, last year was awful for the Dems. But I think you’ve conflated a few leaps of reasoning (dems lost races in 2002, therefore are not in the center, therefore are moving to the left). The key 2002 races hinged on two things, neither of which are linked to interest groups, or a right-center-left political spectrum. First, of course, was national security. Everyone knew that the Dems opposed Bush’s method of marching to war, but the Ds couldn’t find a way to talk about it in any way that made sense. Thus, they looked like spineless idiots who couldn’t make up their minds (hmm, pretty accurate, actually). Second, domestic issues like the economy — the Democrats’ strongest issue — were simply absent from the discussion, for a number or reasons (dems harped on boring stuff like prescription drugs, and the press was obsessed with the war and homeland security, I think). That, also, is entirely unrelated to lefty interest group infighting.
No doubt, the Democratic Party has problems, but they don’t come from moving to the left.