Wordcruncher

Sshh! You’ll Frighten the Moderates!

As long as this period of Democratic introspective analysis continues, I’ll take the opportunity to comment on the “don’t frighten the moderates” cowardice. My best guess is we’re talking about southern Democrats here.

My reasoning: Just as “liberal” has become a label of derision in the Republican Party ever since Sen. Barry Goldwater lost in 1964 (when’s the last time you met a “Rockefeller Republican”?), so has the term “conservative” been stigmatized in the Democratic Party.

Thus, Democrats formerly known as conservative – in other words, southerners – are now embracing the more appealing “moderate” label. And many Democrats likewise run away from the term liberal, for fear that, as in the 80s, merely calling a candidate liberal could be considered certain doom.

Yes, I am aware that Mr. Clinton ran as a centrist and instituted the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) to drive party philosophy through Sen. Al Gore’s campaign and up to the ’04 primaries. And I know that Mr. Clinton succeeded and Sen. Gore won the popular vote.

And that’s it. There is no “Clinton legacy” in the Party today. The DLC made fools of themselves with their hysterical attacks on Governor Dean in the primaries and rendered themselves obsolete among rank-and-file Democrats.

The biggest reason for the failure of moderate Democrats is that it’s a position created to fight against the public perception of Democrats (that, and presenting a moderate Democrat as a presidential candidate is as bland to the American public as plain rice and toast). In other words, moderate Democrats do not run as Democrats; they run against the Republican stereotype of Democrats.

And that’s a Republican’s dream. Running against a moderate Democrat – a Republican Lite – is a slam dunk. Democrats know this now; witness Sen. Joe Lieberman, who despite instant name recognition continually polled below 5% all over the country in the primaries. A moderate Democrat runs defensively right out of the gate, making it easy for a Republican candidate to launch withering offensive attacks. There’s a reason Mr. Bush said he’d prefer to run against Sen. Lieberman (who oddly touted this statement as though it were an endorsement).

The task before us is not to run to the center – nor is it necessarily to run as liberals. It is to stop running against Republicans’ image of Democrats. To do that, I say again: We need to articulate a standard package of core beliefs that every Democrat everywhere can run on.

The Steve Soto post regarding the Democracy Corps poll I referenced yesterday is a good place to start. We should be able to boil "greed and materialism" and "poverty and economic justice" into six or seven core issues that Democratic candidates of all stripes – African-Americans, women, pro-laborites – can run on. These are simple, high-level issues, with no need to drill down to the specific interest group level. And there’s clearly an audience for them.

Create a frame into which any candidate can step.

Sen. Kerry burned a great deal of time and momentum fighting against the image Republicans painted of him. Coming out of the primaries, the American people waited for him to articulate his beliefs and positions. He had to “go dark” in those critical post-primary months to raise cash. By the time he was ready to stump, his first task was to dismantle two or three months of Republican advertisements portraying him as an unprincipled “flip-flopper.” Once he’d navigated through those waters to the Democratic convention, then came the false Swift Boat accusations portraying him as a coward.

Clearly articulated values that surrogate Democrats could hammer on his behalf would have gone a long way toward neutralizing the instant Republican advantage. But more importantly, it would help bring an end to Democrats running against Republican caricatures of Democrats.