The Art of Politics

The Rundown

The election, in a nutshell...

This election was between a fairly liberal Senator from Massachussetts and a fairly conservative incumbent President from Texas against the backdrop of two hard but successful wars and an economy that is trending well and, when analyzed dispassionately, is pretty well off.

That's a hard hill to climb if you're the challenger.

Kerry did about as well as anyone should expect - he made maximum hay by going Dean on the war, energizing an already energized base that had been nursing a grudge and bilious spite for four long years. But Kerry was not able to achieve victory for two basic reasons - he could not appeal personally to the public at large due to his aloof persona, nor could he appeal to their core values, because he did not demonstrate that he shared them.

Not Being Bush didn't work any better than most pundits said it would. Mind you, we don't buy that people only energize by voting for, rather than against, which is what current pablum offers as the Not Being Bush vote. But the gay marriage referendums demonstrate you CAN get voters to the polls to vote against something - and let's be honest, these referendums were against gay marriage, not in favor of heterosexual marriage, as divorce rates and out of wedlock childbirths clearly demonstrate...

In this case, you could get people to vote against Bush - alot of them. But as strongly as anti-Bush voters felt, Bush voters felt even stronger. The Broken Glass Republicans were determined to get to the polls, and they did in record numbers. To that end, they continued some trends...

The nation is mainstreaming conservatism. It began in 1980, when the transition from pragmatic conservatism to the modern incarnation of conservatism took place. Nixon and price controls gave way to Reagan and firing the air traffic controllers. Accomodation was out, principle and acting on it was in. This high profile conservative President helped pave the way for a new alignment among the electorate, as old party machinery in heavily Democrat areas began to break down, and as the population became increasingly Southern and suburban.

Culminating in the elections of 1994, conservatism began dominating statehouses, governor's mansions, and indeed the federal legislature. The washing ashore of this wave continues unabated even today - and will for a few more years to come. Like a wave breaking, it's momentum still pushes itself ashore to extend it's reach. As the upper midwest further suburbanizes, and as liberal states continue to have their population leech away toward the red states, the electoral map at the federal level will continue to shift weight toward Republicans.

Which begs the question - what are Democrats to do? This is indeed the rub, and what they need to do is unfortunately what they are unlikely to do. What the Democrat party needs to do is move away from being an amalgamation of interests and re-engage support among white males, suburban and rural values voters, and traditional blue collar voters that they've steadily lost. The Democrat party must unsacramentalize abortion politics and embrace their own pro-life candidates and differences, including understanding how extremism in the defense of abortion is an electoral vice. This likely means taking a step back and shedding the more fringe left constituencies that they've been hedging their hopes on. But, they will never compete for the lion's share groups - whites, religious voters - until they have this unsightly growth of fringe support removed.

Unfortunately, what the Democrats have been doing on the surface is externalizing their losses and blaming the electorate for a lack of enlightenment. The Democrat party is out of power at every level of government - they do not control the White House, the Congress, the Governorships, the State Houses. Look, no party has a monopoly on good ideas. But too much of the mainstream Democrat party has been absorbed with examining everything about this election and prior losses EXCEPT their positions. It's trickery, malfeasance, cheating, ignorance, illiteracy, nearly every externalized rationalization possible, OTHER than the mere possibility that the other side has ideas that sound a little bit better to voters. Not on everything, but on enough things that they prefer GOP packaged goods to theirs.

This election wasn't a startling rejection of Democrat politics - there is nothing startling about it. This is merely an extension of the 2002 race, and 1994, and 1980... and unless the Democrat party revitalizes itself, it will be a result replayed in other elections to come. The nation needs a vibrant, relevant Democrat party - even Republicans can smell the rot of a single party with no electoral check.

Taking a step back - and a breath - is the prelude to taking a step forward for the Democrat party.

Posted by MEC2 at November 5, 2004 04:26 PM