The other day, a bunch of people
linked favorably to William Saletan's
recent article in Slate. At the time,
I said that Saletan was giving conservatives far too much ground by making this election about Bush's failures, not about his ideology. I apologize if this has been discussed already, but yesterday Stanley Greenberg
articulated my feeling far better than I did when I said "we're right; they're wrong."
It is not simply that George W Bush has failed to achieve his own goals and so has taken to obfuscation and cultural attack. Rather, his own goals are unpopular in the first place, and lying is an inherent part of his strategy for electoral success. Kerry should focus his strategy on making this election a referendum on George W Bush's worldview. As Greenberg writes, this election should be about Kennedy vs. Reagan. In polls, Kennedy's platform pulverizes Reagan's.
I call my measure for an appropriate electoral strategy "the Andrew Sullivan test." Assume that Kerry wins: if Andrew Sullivan still has a shred of intellectual integrity intact, the electoral strategy is not optimal. There is a reason that Sullivan called Saletan's piece the best case against Bush that he's read: it is consistent for both Saletan and Sullivan to be fundamentally correct. It is not consistent for Greenberg and Sullivan to be fundamentally correct. If Greenberg is right, all of the drivel that Andrew Sullivan spews out on a daily basis will be completely and utterly discredited. (That may be a worthy goal in itself, irrespective of Kerry's victory.)
In any case, I believe that the "we're right; they're wrong" strategy is sound, both electorally and intellectually. We'll see whether Kerry follows Saletan or Greenberg.
OTS: Yesterday I finally went to Tintern Abbey! After a day of beautiful hiking in the wonderful Forest of Dean, we visited the Abbey. It has to be the most wonderful ruin anywhere. The whole thing was a perfect Wordsworth experience.