The Republicans, after all, are in many ways a larger tent than the Democrats.... And that's because they can. The Republicans only have two groups to please: social conservatives, and fiscal conservatives....
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.
I've gotta disagree on a number of levels.
First, it doesn't just take the skill and charm of Bill Clinton to make it work. No matter what you think of the 2000 elections, the fact remains that Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George Bush. Gore didn't have the charm nor the skill of President Clinton.
Second, sure, the Democratic Party has lots of interest groups each having their own limus tests. But, when push comes to shove, the party members and independents come out to vote for their party. It's not like they have 135 different choices on the ballot. They usually have just 2 (or, in the case of the last three Presidential elections, 3, including Perot and Nader). So, President Clinton can anger labor with his support of NAFTA but still get labor's vote in 1996. Clinton can anger the far left with his ending of welfare as we know it in 1995 but still get their vote in 1996. Clinton can execute a mentally retarded person in 1992 and still get the anti-death penalty vote that same year. Gore can distance himself from Clinton's accomplishments and still his votes in 2000.
Why do Democrats (and many independents) rally around their candidate come election time? It is because the Democratic Party does have core beliefs that they all share. President Clinton articluated them like few others before, but others have, and others will. I give an example below.
Jane Galt continues:
But the larger problem is that those interest groups are increasingly coming into conflict. African-americans want vouchers, but the more powerful teacher's union says no. Latinos trend strongly pro-life, but don't let NARAL catch them at it. Environmentalists want stricter standards that cost union members jobs. The more interest groups under the tent, the looser the grip the party has on any one group. And as social security and medicare turn into the sucking chest wound of the budget, the money for the programs that Democratic politicians have traditionally used to cement those interest groups to them is disappearing.
Sure, there is conflict. But there is no conflict in opposition. Meaning, all of these interest groups that she lists... African Americans, teachers unions, Latinos, environmentalists, and the others she doesn't... are all united against the fiscal conservatism opposing them (politically opposing, that is). And it's not just solidarity in opposition, these groups, again, all share a corps of beliefs.
She continues:
And the reason that I thought of that is that Daniel Drezner makes what I think is essentially the same point in discussing why the Democrats are having such a hard time coalescing around a candidate.
Are Galt and Drezner agahst that the Democrats haven't coalesced around a candidate yet? It's 2003 forgoshsakes. The first primary is months away. The convention is basically a year away. What do they expect? A candidate all ready picked out? Ready to go? Sorry that just doesn't happen.
Picking a nominee is hard. The Democrats *should* be having a "hard time". It's always hard -- for both parties. For every George W. Bush who gets the nomination, there is a John McCain who fights for it and doesn't. Debating who the best person to run doesn't imply a hard time. It's democracy. Come next October, the party will be united. That doesn't mean a "hard time" is being experienced.
Oh yeah, what are these core beliefs? Courage and confidence.
It's an old story. It's as old as our history. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has always been measured in courage and confidence. The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. The strong, the strong they tell us will inherit the land.
We Democrats believe in something else. We democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact. And, we have more than once. Ever since Franklin Roosevelt lifted himself from his wheelchair to lift this nation from its knees -- wagon train after wagon train -- to new frontiers of education, housing, peace; the whole family aboard, constantly reaching out to extend and enlarge that family; lifting them up into the wagon on the way; blacks and Hispanics, and people of every ethnic group, and native Americans -- all those struggling to build their families and claim some small share of America.
For nearly 50 years we carried them all to new levels of comfort, and security, and dignity, even affluence. And remember this, some of us in this room today are here only because this nation had that kind of confidence. And it would be wrong to forget that.
So, here we are at this convention to remind ourselves where we come from and to claim the future for ourselves and for our children. Today our great Democratic Party, which has saved this nation from depression, from fascism, from racism, from corruption, is called upon to do it again -- this time to save the nation from confusion and division, from the threat of eventual fiscal disaster, and most of all from the fear of a nuclear holocaust....
Comments (7)
First of all, the popular vote is nice, but ultimately irrelevant. We don't know what the election would have looked like under a national referendum, because the campaign would have been run much, much differently, (and Al Gore would never have been vice president).
And second of all, a sitting vice president on top of the longest economic boom since WWII and the priceless boon of no national security issues that anyone cared about who couldn't muster a majority or an electoral victory is rather more proof of my point than yours. Al Gore couldn't win in 2004 unless the Republicans nominated Pat Buchanan, which hardly argues for the enduring popularity of the DLC.
Posted by Jane Galt | August 26, 2003 11:33 PM
Posted on August 26, 2003 23:33
The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. The strong, the strong they tell us will inherit the land.
We Democrats believe in something else. We democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact.
The whole family intact? What about abortion and euthanasia? Or to put it another way, except for that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
Posted by Richard | August 27, 2003 12:13 AM
Posted on August 27, 2003 00:13
I suppose we could play this game forever: a sitting vice president on part of one of only two administrations to be impeached -- fewer than two years before his own election -- and whose administration was the target of scorn and ridicule unmatched in American political history yet mustered a majority of the vote is rather more proof of my point than yours.
And I've gotta disagree that the popular vote is "irrelevant". Sure, for selecting the president, only the electoral college matters. And, perhaps, without the electoral college the campaign would have been run differently. But, the fact remains that more people voted for Gore than Bush. I read once (anybody know where?) that trees don't vote and acres don't vote... in a democracy, it's person one vote.
And, I disagree that Gore couldn't win in 2004. Maybe he'd lose. Maybe he'd win. Against Presdent Bush. Who knows. But I wouldn't write him off so quickly. Remember, Nixon won in 1968 after both his 1960 presidential defeat and 1962 gubenatorial defeat. And Nixon's no Gore.
And, on a related note: respectfully, it's this attitude (the Buchanan quip) which, IMHO, is going to lead to a Democratic victory in 2004. Underestimating the opposition leads to losing to the opposition (see: Bush I in 1992, Thornburgh in Pennsylvania in 1991, the Republican Congressional/Senatorial candidates in 1998). When the Republicans take their elections seriously (1994, 2002), they can win. If they laugh off the 2004 election, they'll lose. For, just going on the electoral college vote, for the 3rd time in 4 elections.
Posted by Partha Mazumdar | August 27, 2003 12:18 AM
Posted on August 27, 2003 00:18
And I've gotta disagree that the popular vote is "irrelevant". Sure, for selecting the president, only the electoral college matters. And, perhaps, without the electoral college the campaign would have been run differently. But, the fact remains that more people voted for Gore than Bush.
In many states, (e.g. California), the result of the presidential vote was a foregone conclusion -- there was no way that Bush would win there, or in a few other states; and likewise no way that Gore would win in a number of midwestern states. In all of those states, the presidential vote effectively didn't matter -- the effect of an extra vote for Bush or Gore would get wiped away at the state level. On the other hand, in a national referendum, especially in such a tight race, votes would have mattered far more -- and millions more would have gone to the polls. Tens of millions more, probably. This dwarfs the tiny 500,000-vote difference the candidates got in the election.
In other words, the 500,000-vote advantage doesn't even show that (slightly) more people wanted him as president -- even if you illogically brush off and ignore the fact that the campaigns would have been radically different in a referendum.
The 500,000-vote difference is a fraction of a percent. To say that those 500,000 votes mean something, while brushing aside or ignoring things that could easily have added millions of votes to either side, is absurd.
Posted by Poop | August 27, 2003 4:18 PM
Posted on August 27, 2003 16:18
> In many states, (e.g. California), the result
> of the presidential vote was a foregone
> conclusion -- there was no way that Bush
> would win there, or in a few other states;
> and likewise no way that Gore would win in a
> number of midwestern states.
I donno... the last weekend of the campaign, Karl Rove said that California was not only still in play but that Bush might win it.
> On the other hand, in a national referendum,
> especially in such a tight race, votes would
> have mattered far more -- and millions more
> would have gone to the polls. Tens of millions
> more, probably. This dwarfs the tiny
> 500,000-vote difference the candidates got
> in the election.
We can talk about hypotheticals all day long. Things like, if the campaign was run differently... if it were a nationalwide popular contest, then the states with the biggest populations would then matter more (because, well, more people live there) and ther would be larger get-out-the-vote campaigns there and more television advertizing there, and since these places are usually solidly Democratic (California, irregardless of what Rove claimed and the campaign media ate up, New York, Pennsylvania's cities, the rest of the rust belt), then the Democratic vote would be much much higher. Gore wouldn't have won by just 500,000... he would have won in a cakewalk.
But, again, these are just hypotheticals.
We do, of course, have one point of fact. When an election was held, 500,000 more people voted for Gore than Bush. The rest is all maybes and ifs.
And, when doing statistics, I was always taught that one must look at percentages and real numbers seperately. Sure, it's a small percentage of the total. But, cripes, 500,000 people is a bunch of people.
Posted by Partha | August 27, 2003 4:40 PM
Posted on August 27, 2003 16:40
First, that's not a point of fact. Otherwise there wouldn't have been the whole recount controversy in Florida. The truth is, no one really knows exactly how many votes either candidate received.
Second, saying "500,000 people is a bunch of people" is meaningless. It's a bunch of people to show up at your house for a party, but it's not a bunch of people in terms of a margin of victory in a presidential election.
Posted by Ben | August 27, 2003 6:30 PM
Posted on August 27, 2003 18:30
But, again, these are just hypotheticals.
We do, of course, have one point of fact. When an election was held, 500,000 more people voted for Gore than Bush. The rest is all maybes and ifs.
Who would win in a marathon: me or you? We do have one point of fact. When I raced you in a 50-yard sprint yesterday, you came out ahead. So would you beat me in a 26-mile road race? We have to assume you would; we just have that one point of fact, and everything else is maybes and ifs.
Any statements about the hypothetical results of the hypothetical referendum, speculative though they may be, are infinitely more relevent and useful than the figure of 500,000. So half a cheer for you.
I doubt it's as simple as "big states are liberal=Gore wins by a cakewalk", but I'm not familiar enough with demographics or voting psychology to argue this.
Posted by Poop | August 28, 2003 1:37 AM
Posted on August 28, 2003 01:37