New Hampshire and Historical Analogies
In the aftermath of yesterday’s New Hampshire primary, I wonder what historical analogy will best explain the 2004 Democratic nominating process. My hunch now would be the 1988 race. John Edwards has played a role comparable to Al Gore’s in 1988—the moderate, telegenic, wonkish Southerner who everyone thinks should be running stronger in the polls. Howard Dean offers a combination of Bruce Babbitt, the good-government outsider, and the late Illinois senator Paul Simon, 1988’s version of representing the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.” Al Sharpton lacks the breadth that Jesse Jackson did in 1988, but, like Jackson then, is running to highlight issues and mobilize the African-American base rather than from any hope of victory. Dick Gephardt, of course, was back as himself, and with an equally woeful result. There’s no 1988 parallel for Wesley Clark, but otherwise the overlap is considerable.
If 1988 is the appropriate historical analogy, then John Kerry would play the role of Mike Dukakis (under whom he served, briefly, as lieutenant governor during Dukakis’ second gubernatorial term). Much like Dukakis in 1988, Kerry in 2004 is acceptable to most wings of the party, even if he inspires little personal enthusiasm from any. Also like Dukakis, there are few specific positions with which Kerry is associated—indeed, from Iraq to taxes to affirmative action, Kerry has changed his position during the course of his career, much like Dukakis, who evolved from a good-government liberal to more of e technocrat. And Kerry, like Dukakis in 1988, has surged in large part from a vague sense that he would be the strongest candidate the party could offer.
Democrats discovered otherwise with Dukakis, and there’s good reason to think they will with Kerry as well, if he winds up the nominee. Indeed, it would be the ultimate irony were Kerry to get the nomination on the grounds of “electability,” since on paper he looks the ideal foe for a Republican: a patrician Massachusetts liberal with a reputation for altering his positions based on polls and with a surprisingly poor record in partisan elections (a loss in a 1972 House race and weak Senate race showings, for a Democrat in Massachusetts, in the only two elections—1984 and 1996—in which the state GOP contested the seat). One could imagine “electability” producing the nomination of Edwards, as a telegenic Southerner, Clark, with his national security expertise and his record of being right on the key—and difficult—international issues of the 1990s, or even Dean, with his credibility as an outsider. But Kerry? Like Dukakis in 1988, it’s hard to see electability as his strong suit.
The 1988 elections offered the original version of Super Tuesday (a mini-version had existed in 1984). The expectation was that a massive Southern primary would ensure a Southern nominee. Instead, the primaries produced an ambivalent result, with Dukakis winning in a few states and running strongly enough in the others to be perceived as the day’s overall winner. If, as it looks right now, the March 3 primaries produce a similar result for Kerry, then the 1988 analogy might indeed be worth pondering.