OT: Fascinating!

[ProSense]

Sen. Clinton Outlines Legislative Priorities

November 13th, 2006 - 5:23 pm |

Kevin Drum has an interesting post up with more post-election analysis, and in the post is a graph which I think perfectly captures something I’ve been talking about lately. Specifically, that the middle of the political spectrum is defined not by some strange or nebulous centrist ideology, but by the fact that it’s non-ideological.

Look at the graph and you’ll see a void in the ideological center, which is as it should be: ideologues are almost by definition at the extremes. The great majority of voters are either moderates or left- and right-leaning moderates, and what bonds them together despite labels like party identification or political philosophy is that they put utility ahead of utopian goals. True conservatives and true liberals are rare — which the graph also shows.

I also perked up toward the end of Mr. Drum’s post, when he said this:

After all, what I really wanted to see this year was some evidence that the American public will put up with only just so much in the way of corruption, extremism, and almost insane levels of incompetence before it revolts, and that’s what we got.

Regular Premise readers know that’s what I’ve taken to calling the new meme. It’s the idea that the Republican Party is no longer trusted by Independents or swing voters in either party. And by no longer trusted, I mean the Republican brand itself now prompts those voters to think that Republicans are inherently corrupt, incompetent, etc.

Yet I don’t think Mr. Drum fully appreciates what a powerful change this is. It’s not simply the case that voters have decided to give Democrats a chance. Voters have decided to give Democrats a chance because Republicans have proven themselves to be incompetent at governance. And isn’t that a difference worth pouncing and pounding on? Why aren’t progressives and Democrats alike talking about how the 2006 election proves that Republicans can’t be trusted on everything from Social Security to national security to health care to you name it? Mr. Drum’s very next sentence hints at the answer:

With that out of the way, now we can spend the next couple of years persuading the public to move a few steps to the left.

In the press and in the Democratic Party there seems to be much more concern about where the party is ideologically than how the party can leverage any political advantage the 2006 elections may have demonstrated. And I guess I see that as a shame. As a non-ideological voter who leans Democratic I can’t imagine a better gift for Democrats than demonstrable proof that the Republican Party is no longer trusted. That’s the argument Democrats made over the past two years, that’s what Katrina showed, and suddenly it’s true: the relatively narrow segment of voters who decide national races no longer trusts the Republican Party brand. Not surprisingly, that’s also the one argument that’s going to resonate most with those same voters in the future.

But instead of seizing that advantage, here we are a week from the election and both parties are engaged in intra-party spats about which philosophical labels deserve supremacy. Maybe that makes sense on the Republican side, given the beat down they suffered, but on the Democratic side it’s madness. And I don’t mean to single out Mr. Drum. He gets the new meme, whereas most people haven’t even recognized it.

Instead of trying to directly motivate a shift in voter ideology, I think Democrats and progressives should exploit the trust gap by governing well while simultaneously reminding voters that Republicans can’t. That’s the best recipe for a long-term Democratic majority, and that in turn is how Democrats and progressives can best encourage voters to move a few steps to the left.

– Mark Barrett

This is brilliant!

As I watch the Republicans being parade for 2008, the one thing they all have in common is ties to GOP corruption, but the spin is all about bipartisanship! It's also what Hillary is trying to sell. The pundits all believe they know what's best, and they are still trying to sell something that doesn't exist!