Seth Masket, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver, pens an opinion column this morning in the Denver Post called
"Do Dems need a message?". Contemplating the upcoming mid-term election, Masket ponders the inside-the-beltway narrative that "no one knows what Democrats stand for, so they won't vote for them", a false narrative pushed by Republicans not interested in seeing Democrats achieve electoral success.
This "idea" is complete nonsense, if history can serve as a guide.
First:
The 1952 presidential election, in which the Republicans took the White House after 20 consecutive years of Democratic control, largely turned on the issue of the Korean War. The public was so dissatisfied with Truman's management of the war that he chose to retire rather than run for re-election. And what was Dwight Eisenhower's detailed plan to distinguish himself from Truman and end the war? Five simple words: "I will go to Korea." The American people didn't much care what Ike's plan was - they just knew it would be different from the Democrats', which they felt had failed.
Second:
The Democrats made large gains in the 1974 midterm elections, both in Congress and in most state legislatures. What great coherent message allowed them to do this? There wasn't one. Indeed, the Democratic Party of the early '70s was much less unified than the one that exists today, as it consisted of both Northern liberals and Southern conservatives. The public rewarded the Democrats in 1974 because the election occurred just a few months after Richard Nixon's resignation. The Republican name had been severely damaged by scandal and a slowing economy, so the public turned against it.
Finally:
Pundits will often point to the Republicans' takeover of Congress in 1994 as an example of why a party needs a coherent message. After all, Newt Gingrich had put forward the Contract with America - a 10-point plan detailing what the GOP would do if it gained power. The fact is, though, that two-thirds of Americans had never heard of the contract at the time of the 1994 election. Voters were just dissatisfied with the Clinton administration and felt like throwing out some Democrats. The power of the contract is a myth that's taken hold of the punditry, but it is still nothing more than a myth.
Add to that, the "Contract with America" was only introduced 10 weeks before the election, meaning it was not the central theme of the '94 GOP campaign, but a near last minute addition pilled on an already bad-looking Dem Congress and a floundering early Clinton Administration.
Those who push the "Dems don't have a message" meme are Republicans trying to make Dems nervous. It's pure propaganda, hoping to scare Democrats in to announcing an over-arching, overly detailed laundry list of goals. If this happens Republican candidates can then use this against whoever might be challenging them, trying to flip what the debate is about. Because as Masket points out:
An election is a referendum on the party in power. The out-party may feel free to offer policy alternatives - they may even consider that the responsible thing to do - but it will have little effect on the election. If voters approve of what the incumbent party is doing, it will be hard to defeat, even with the best alternative policies. An incumbent party that has lost favor with the voters, however, can be beaten with nothing.
I'm not saying Democrats individually can't take concrete stances on issues, I just saying the National Party doesn't need an issue-based "Contract". As Kos and and Jerome Armstrong said on Tim Russert's CNBC program this weekend, what unites Democrats isn't a laundry list of single issues, but a belief in the core set of Democratic values: fairness, opportunity, and equality.
It's also helpful to remember to step back. 80% of the population doesn't consume political news as ravenously as bloggers, politicians, and the chattering classes. All most folks now are thinking is that Republicans have been in power for a long time, and they sure have messed things up.
As Masket points out, that alone has been enough to produce election landslides.
x-posted @ SoapBlox Colorado