Should Democrats Pay Attention to All the Advice They've Been Getting?

In the recent years and, especially, in the months prior to this year’s election progressive writers have published a variety of books that advise Democrats on ways to improve their political fortunes. Most of these writers draw lessons for their readers by looking back on American history. Several authors suggest that Democrats can learn from techniques employed successfully over recent decades by the conservatives. Others point to Democratic leaders who provided inspiring leadership in the twentieth century. A third category of book-length advice for Democrats comes from authors who examine the history of recent elections. They offer Democrats detailed advice about conducting winning campaigns. Once the November, 2006 election results are analyzed, it will be interesting to see how some of these lessons were put into practice and to what effect.

The first category of advice books can be concisely identified as “Learning From the Competition.” One of the most influential authors in this group made his contribution two years ago. In What’s the Matter With Kansas? Thomas Frank noted that many conservative Kansans vote against their interests. Rather than vote on economic questions, they rush to the polls to register their concern about social topics such as prayer in schools, gay marriage, and abortion. The G.O.P.’s attention to wedge issues produces victories in Kansas and in many other areas of the country as well. Once Republicans are elected, however, they usually give little attention to the social issues. Instead, they devote much of their legislative energy to supporting economic measures that cut taxes and deregulate business – measures that favor rich individuals and large corporations. The poor and middle-class citizens of Kansas are hurt by the right’s economic policies, Frank argues, yet those very people favor Republicans.

Thomas Frank did not present his study as a primer for Democrats, but Democratic leaders have devoted a good deal of discussion to the messages advanced in What’s the Matter With Kansas? They have looked for ways to break the Republicans’ success in appealing to people who give “moral values” top priority when going to the polls.

George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at Berkeley, has aroused the interest of many Democrats by asking why Republican references to “values” and other emotion-laden subjects often resonate with voters. Sensitive to the use of language, Lakoff suggests that the Republicans have operated as brilliant wordsmiths. He says Republicans cleverly re-phrase political language so that their references sound positive and appealing. Instead of talking about an Estate Tax, for instance, G.O.P. leaders talk about the Death Tax. Since we all die at some point, it appears that this tax places a large burden on every American (even though the tax makes a significant impact on just a small percentage of wealthy citizens). Similarly, conservatives promote a voucher system that allows parents to take their youngsters out of public schools and place them in private schools, including religious institutions. A voucher program can seriously undermine the nation’s public school systems, but conservatives cleverly “frame” the debate about vouchers as a matter of parental “choice.” Democrats need to learn how to frame their arguments more effectively, Lakoff argues. He shows that Democrats frequently lose this rhetorical competition. To change that situation, Democrats need to take language more seriously.

George Lakoff’s arguments appear in a lengthy, academic book, Moral Politics and in a brief publication that looks like a guide for successful electioneering: Don’t Think of an Elephant! Most recently he has produced Whose Freedom?, a study that that claims Republicans have been monopolizing appeals for “freedom,” and it is time for Democrats to recapture the idea. Some progressives claim Lakoff trivializes election issues by focusing on terminology. These critics misrepresent Lakoff’s thesis. The Berkeley linguist does not suggest that the Democrats’ positions on substantive issues are irrelevant. Lakoff maintains, instead, that the Democrats’ ideas are more likely to attract the interest of voters when they are communicated effectively.

Paul Waldman, a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America in Washington, D.C., offers an especially comprehensive approach to learning from the opposition in Being Right is Not Enough. His sub-title, “What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success” communicates the book’s principal message. Democrats need to study the diverse ways Republicans have managed to appeal to the voters in recent decades, Waldman suggests. The Democrats have been in a funk recently, the author recognizes, but he is confident they can reverse their difficulties. Waldman reminds readers that conservatives were depressed back in the 1960s after Barry Goldwater’s resounding defeat in the presidential race and extensive Republican losses in the races for Congress. Yet partisans on the right worked hard after their setbacks in the sixties and produced an effective political machine just a few decades later. They devised a “master narrative,” Waldman notes, an easy-to-understand political perspective that communicated their core principles. Conservatives organized think tanks that aimed to promote their messages to broad audiences, and they built powerful new grass-roots organizations in local communities. The right created a “movement,” and its leaders recognized that they would need many years to turn it into a powerful political organization. Most important, argues Waldman, conservatives came out punching.  They demonstrated a “warrior spirit,” arguing fiercely with Democrats as if the fate of American civilization depended upon the dispute. Democrats need to get tough, too, argues Waldman, and toughness depends largely on firming up their beliefs. Unfortunately, too often Democrats do not have the stomach for a tough fight on principle, he says, as was the case in their 2003 vote on the Iraq War.           

The second grouping of advice books might be called, “Learning from Successful Democrats.” The authors of these works look back upon American history and find inspiration in the ideas and policies of notable party figures of the twentieth century. In The Good Fight Peter Beinart points to the example of liberals and Democrats who took strong stands in the early years of the Cold War. He gives particular attention to national security matters and offers liberals a hawkish call to arms. Beinart applauds the ideas and actions of centrist-minded Democrats who organized Americans for Democratic Action, a strongly anti-communist group, after World War II. He appreciates Harry Truman’s muscular approach to foreign policy, demonstrated through his toughness in dealing with Soviet threats. The author finds fault with various left-oriented individuals, because he thinks they were too soft when international aggressors threatened America and the free world. He criticizes Henry Wallace, George McGovern, and Michael Moore in this regard. Beinart was an enthusiast of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, but he confesses at the beginning of this book that he was wrong in taking that stand. Despite this contrition, it is clear that the author will not march arm in arm with John Murtha and other Democrats who have changed their minds dramatically about the war. When defending his book in public, Beinart has lashed out at Democrats and liberals who urged an early exit of U.S. forces from Iraq.

In contrast, Gary Hart offers a much more critical view of U.S. involvement in Iraq and draws lessons for Democrats from the debates about that engagement. Hart communicates the principal message in his title: The Courage of Our Convictions. Gary Hart, formerly a Democratic senator from Colorado, praises four presidents that demonstrated courage when dealing with critical problems. He points out that FDR tried to build a single national community in which no American would be left behind. Truman struggled to preserve democracy in the world, and JFK reminded the American people of their duty to serve the nation. LBJ spoke out strongly for equality. Many of the current Democratic leaders lack their courage, he says. In recent years Democrats have stood “mute” in the face of important controversies and have “lost their way.” They have suffered from diminished credibility in national security matters, he argues, because they remained silent when the Bush Administration put mistaken foreign policies into action. A few Democrats boldly challenged the Administration during its pursuit of war in Iraq, including Robert Byrd, Edward Kennedy, and Russell Feingold, but many other Democrats acted as if they belonged to the “Party of Timidity.” Democrats ought to stand on principle both for idealistic reasons and for practical success in politics, argues Hart.

A third grouping of advice books for Democrats deals with what we might call the “Nuts and Bolts of Effective Electioneering.” These authors focus on strategy, identifying specific approaches to campaigning that have produced gains for Democrats in recent years.  They point out that the Democrats’ fortunes with the voters are not nearly as disappointing as many people think. The electoral system gives disproportionate advantage to the less populated states, the authors remind us. In terms of popular votes the Democrats have often outpolled Republicans at the national level. The challenge now is for Democrats to find ways to pry G.O.P. support loose in key states so they can re-take the Congress and, ultimately capture the White House.

In the last four presidential elections Republicans won only 44% of the popular vote (and they held the lead in popular votes only once those four races), observe Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed in The Plan: Big Ideas for America. The two authors, prominent Democrats, acknowledge George Lakoff’s argument that progressives need to learn how to frame their ideas better, but Emanuel and Reed want to spell out those ideas more clearly. Cognizant of the success of Republican Newt Gingrich’s in offering a “Contract With America” back in the 1990s, the authors try to come up with their own vision of a contract for the twenty-first century. They want to increase the minimum wage, lower drug prices, implement recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, create energy independence, restore college loans, and put the nation’s fiscal affairs back in order. Some pundits warn that voters roll their eyes when confronted with complex, multi-point plans. Nevertheless, Emanuel and Reed maintain that specific agendas count in elections. Democrats need to tell voters what they are for as well as what they are against.

In Whistling Past Dixie, political scientist Thomas F. Schaller suggests that some ideas will not resonate with specific voters even when Democratic candidates articulate them effectively and identify their intentions in detail. Democrats have been wasting time, money, and energy trying to convince voters in the southern states to support their party, Schaller argues. Republicans dominate southern voting today much as Democrats dominated southern politics from 1860 to 1932. The Democrats should write off the South, says Schaller. Once they give up the dream of winning substantial support in the South, they will free themselves for more effective electioneering elsewhere. No longer will they need to pander to voters on issues related to religious influence in public affairs, reproductive rights, macho foreign policy, and other matters of particular concern to southerners. By stressing the South’s distinctiveness – the distance of its people’s social views from those of the American mainstream – Democrats can make greater gains in states where the people’s attitudes are closer to their own. Whistling past Dixie, suggests Schaller, will help Democrats turn the mountain, Midwestern, and southwestern states into blue territories. Along with traditional Democratic strength in the Northeast, those gains can give the Democrats dominance in the Congress and the White House.

The ideas in these and other books of their kind have been the subject of animated discussions in Democratic circles recently, but it will be difficult to see if those concepts affect the forthcoming congressional elections. Four developments of recent weeks have given the Democrats unanticipated “October Surprises,” and those factors may prove especially important in bringing new regions of the country into the blue column. The release of an intelligence report indicating that the war in Iraq has made the problem of terrorism worse deeply undermined the Bush Administration’s claim of superiority in security matters. Bob Woodward’s much-publicized book, State of Denial has given legitimacy to charges that leaders in the Bush Administration lied to the American people about the war in Iraq. Furthermore, recent news from the bloody streets of Baghdad and other cities suggest that Iraq is quickly slipping into a state of civil war. And, of course, the Mark Foley scandal has reminded voters about the Republican Party’s recent problems with corruption. Ultimately, these late developments may have much greater impact on the election than the advice various progressive strategists have provided in their books.