Uneasy Rhetoric

I am a big fan of The Economist. If I lean to the left, the Economist leans to the right to about the same degree - I like to think of them as thinking conservatives who give this thinking liberal a better view of the world than anything published in the United States. Even better, they are sometimes eerily astute when it comes to American elections.

While the Democrats are tearing their hair out trying to find out what has gone wrong and while the pundits are talking like GWB won a decisive victory based on values, the Economist, in its somewhat more rational way, gets it right (sorry, requires a paid subscription, “Back to Basics” from the November 6th-12th, 2004 issue):

His victory came from going back to political basics - sticking to one message, having a plan to get out the vote - and doing them better than his opponents.

There you have it. GWB won because his campaign was better. Simple? Absolutely. Kerry’s loss was tactical, not strategic. The close margins in several states, and indeed the “purpling” of America, demonstrates that the Democratic message resonates with many, many voters.

This was a close election - close enough that the Democrats lose sight of their ideology at their own peril. Democrats are notoriously wishy-washy; we have practiced polling-based values better and longer than any Republican ever did, and our sordid affair with centrism while still sleeping with our leftist wife have made us out to be the non-committal spouses we are.

Perhaps that wasn’t be best analogy - after all, some movement to the center is good. If the Republicans are brought down, it will be because their extremists are also their power base. For Democrats, our extremists - eco-terrorists, the hardcore anti-globalists, socialist peaceniks, PETA, and even that guy who challenged “under God” in the pledge - are rightly marginalized without being ignored completely. The wacky left does not run the Democratic Party but the wacky right does run the Republicans.

So the Democrats, instead of once again trying to reformulate their message and flip over to another angle or flop onto a different side of an argument, should focus on developing stronger leadership and on simplifying the messages they already have. Kerry was a good candidate - maybe even a great candidate - whose campaign suffered from a lack of leadership; they had the right strategies (mostly), but mistimed them and implemented them poorly in the field.

As for the Republicans, they may feel like they have a mandate, but they clearly do not. This election was very close, and that should worry them. What should worry them even more is that the states which send money to Washington are colored very blue, while the states that take money from Washington are very red (as www.fuckthesouth.com said, somewhat inelegantly). In other words, the states that rejected the Democrats and accepted the uber-tax-cutter ultimately have the most to lose from budget cuts at the federal level. How long will it take for that to hit home?

Next: Economist was Right, Part II, Rethinking Hillary Clinton.