JONATHAN COHN AUGUST 11, 2010
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The early spin on last night's primaries is that it was a good night for the Democrats, largely because Republican voters in four states rallied behind candidates who, in the words of Politico, are "tarnished by scandal, gaffes or some other significant vulnerability." And when you think about the likes of Linda McMahon, the World Wrestling tycoon, running for the Senate from Connecticut, the spin makes a lot of sense.
This morning McMahon was on "Good Morning America" and host George Stephanopoulos asked her whether she regretted anything she did during her tenure at WWE. As McMahon was dodging the question, by talking up the charity work the company had done, ABC rolled a clip of her in the wrestling ring, kicking a contestant in the shins. Throw in the misogyny of pro wrestling and I just don't see how Connecticut votes for her. (Click here to subscribe to The New Republic.)
But something else on the GMA broadcast got my attention--and not in a good way.
Stephanopoulos' other guest was Michael Bennet, the Democratic senator from Colorado, who'd just beaten insurgent Democrat Andrew Romanoff. Stephanopoulos put to Bennet the questions Republicans are already asking--namely, how does he defend his votes for health care reform, the stimulus, and other items on the Obama agenda? Bennet responded by dodging the question every bit as brazenly as McMahaon had hers, instead talking about the Republicans and their lack of a positive agenda.
Now, this was a brief interview, apparently taped last night not long after the results came in. Given time, perhaps Bennet would have made a more explicit and direct defense of those votes. And maybe this isn't so indicative of the way he's run, or will run, his campaign. Honestly, I haven't followed the Colorado race very closely. (Also on TNR: Can We Trust People Who Find God on Their Deathbeds?)
But Bennet's answer seems to be of a piece with what I understand to be the basic Democratic strategy for the midterms: Make this about the Republicans and their lack of fitness for office.
And that worries me for two reasons. First, it's a sign of how weak Democrats seem to be politically right now. It's just not a good sign when candidates have to run, as far and as fast as they can, from their party's agenda. And while I'd expect Democrats to do that in the deep South, Colorado is a swing state that's been trending Democratic and voted for Obama in 2008.
Second, I just don't have a lot of faith in this strategy. When a candidate's argument is all about why the other guy is worse, it doesn't exactly build up voter confidence. And if the candidate is an incumbent, I fear, a lot of voters will eventually decide some kind of change is better than the status quo.
This is the place where I usually remind readers that I could be totally wrong--that I am a lot less comfortable second-guessing strategy than I am second-guessing policy. If Bennet and other Democrats are making the campaign all about the Republicans, presumably that's because strategist who know a heck of a lot more than I do have run the different scenarios and determined this is the best way to win.
But over the last two years, in particular, I've come to realize that political strategists don't always know what they're talking about. What would happen if Bennet answered the Stephanopoulos question differently--what if he said, yes, I voted for the stimulus because it created a bunch of jobs and kept us from falling into a full-blown depression, while giving Colorado a ton of good public works? What if he said, yes, I voted for health care because it means that it means middle class people won't have to worry so much about their medical bills--or fear the possibility they'd get sick with no way of paying for treatment?
The strategists would say those are no-no's, because the laws are unpopular and voters hate spending. I'm not so sure a smart argument like that wouldn't win over at least some skeptics, and put Democrats in better standing.
Or maybe not. Like I said, I could be totally wrong. The bottom line is that Democrats are still in a lot of trouble, notwithstanding last night's results.
The one silver lining, I think, is that Republicans seem to be running a mirror strategy, making it all about the Democrats. The cliche in politics is that you can't beat something with nothing. But maybe you can beat nothing with nothing.
8 comments
It seems that Democratic candidates are in a bit of a prisoner's dilemma. No one wants to feel like they are standing alone defending a liberal agenda. However, if Democratic candidates universally and vigorously defended it, this would have a real effect on the nature of the national debate and at least slow the Republicans' ongoing and successful efforts to push it ever rightward. Once there is no one remaining in politics who is willing to vocally defend liberalism, liberalism is effectively dead.
- Fishpeddler
August 11, 2010 at 10:48am
Cohn is definitely right that the Democrats cannot run away from their most significant legislative accomplishment, so why would they even try. On the other hand, the Democrats did a poor job (in my estimation) of selling it to begin with, so what can we expect from them when the perception is that voters don't like it. In other words, maybe nothing is the new normal, as Cohn suggests, because something is fraught with risk.
- rayward
August 11, 2010 at 10:56am
You can beat something with nothing. The Democrats in 2006 essentially ran on the record of Republican failure (Iraq, Katrina, Abramoff, high gas prices) while offering little of positive substance. As Michael Kinsley wrote back then, "True, people might question your sanity if you were to declare that you were voting for the Democratic Party agenda. The what? If there's anything worse than ignoring that famous elephant in the room, it's imagining a donkey that's not in the room. Even so, a vote for the Democrat is a vote against the Republican. And voting 'no' to a record of failure is more important to the functioning of democracy than voting 'yes' to any number of promises about the future." http://www.slate.com/id/2152350/ I thought 2006 was the perfect time for Democrats to put forward a positive plan for responsible governance. They didn't and won big anyway, so I suppose I was wrong to some extent. But now we're stuck with the situation where both parties offer goodies without asking the public if they're willing to take the actions necessary to make them possible in the long run--or when Democrats try to ask, the actions are rejected as "unpopular" (at least health care reform is paid for to a large degree). Republicans tout tax cuts, but never ask people what services they'd give up for them. They promise to go after the deficit but don't ask for serious entitlement reform (we can't touch Medicare!). There are popular parts of health care reform--ban on discrimination for preexisting conditions, subsidies--but they come with the "unpopular" parts needed to make them work--mandates, higher taxes for some. People say they want energy reform, but seem unwilling to change their use habits to make it happen. Promising outcomes without asking for a public commitment to the means may be a good way of winning elections, but it's not a sustainable form of governance. With such hesitancy to ask anything of the public to achieve the things they say they want, I wonder if responsible governance is possible in this country anymore. Still, I would prefer to see Democrats attempt to engage real dialogue and lose than avoid the questions and just hang on. I we need to reestablish the connection between the people and their government to make choices, avoid looming disasters, and achieve long-term reform. Just hanging on won't do it, no matter who retains the majority.
- dsimon
August 11, 2010 at 12:10pm
It's as if the Democrats live in a movie the Republicans made, and can't seem to get out to make their own movie. It's like the GOP in the era from FDR to LBJ.
- ironyroad
August 11, 2010 at 12:49pm
Isn't Obama doing well on taxes? I mean, he proposes the elimination of capital gains taxes on small businesses, wants to extend the middle class tax cuts permanently (the income grouping that makes up the majority of Americans), and the most relevant result of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts. He did cut taxes, albeit progressively. And if we let the Bush cuts expire, it raises taxes on the top two income groups from 33% to 36%, and from 35% to 39.6%. Those modest, indeed truly modest tax raises would help this country out substantially. But maybe Republicans are right that the super-rich are all John Galts. Unemployment is rampant, there are lots of job openings but firms are squeezing productivity out of the few employees they have, not hiring anybody new. Yes tax rates on the super-rich were very low throughout this recession, but maybe firms aren't hiring unless the modest, slightly higher rates on the super-rich are kept at the Bush rate, or even lower. I just don't understand or comprehend what is going on. Obama seems amazing on addressing tax relief for those who truly need it, and hints at slight increases that would have a true trickle-down effect-subsidies for HCR for example-are beaten back vociferously. It's all about taxes, everything is about taxes. Obama has to stand up for what he has done and Democrats should stand behind each other for what they helped enact in tax relief this past year and a half. Or maybe, just maybe, tax relief doesn't help an economy on the fritz recover any better than government spending.
- RedState
August 11, 2010 at 2:08pm
Wow, I'm long-winded!
- RedState
August 11, 2010 at 2:09pm
To change the political dynamic, Progressive Democrats need find and support candidates willing to articulate and vote for liberal/progressive policies to challenge Obama and other Blue Dog Dems in the Senate and (to a lesser extent) the House. We've seen enough of Obama and other Blue Dogs to know they are not going to change. To think otherwise follows Einstein's definition of insanity: keep repeating the same experiment in the hopes that next time you'll get a different result. which is what Obama and other Blue Dogs do with respect to trolling for bipartisan solutions and Republican votes. A political policy and campaign slogan of "We're less insane/inept than Bush and the Republicans" has not proven wildly successful to date. Why keep repeating the experiment?
- drofnats1
August 11, 2010 at 2:59pm
I wholeheartedly agree. This has not been a do-nothing Congress, somewhat miraculously it has been an activist Congress, and if Democrats will not defend the good work that they've done, then they're giving the whole game away. Over and over and over again the line needs to be, "Do you want to vote for the party that aims to make government work in your favor or the party that wants to monkey-wrench the whole institution, re-write the tax code so that the rich get to keep ALL their money and tell the rest of us to go fuck ourselves?"
- AaronW
August 11, 2010 at 3:15pm