Every little boy or gal
Who comes into this world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.
W. S. Gilbert
The beliefs of this piece of cynicism seem much more popular on dKos than the rhyme -- which is disconcerting, because the rhyme (and Sullivan's tune) is clever. The beliefs are bullshit.
Part of the argument against persuading voters is the false dichotomy which ignores that possibility. The dichotomy is, "Either you win by turning out your voters, or by running a candidate who is closer to the center than the last one." Since this doesn't consider persuading the voters, that possibility is never chosen.
I ran some figures a while back on the 2004 election in the 8th and 9th CDs in IL. Melissa Bean was a centrist, one of the two most conservative Democrats in the IL delegation at that time. She won her district by capturing some of those who voted for Bush.
Jan Shakowsky was one of the two most liberal representatives in the IL delegation. She got the same percentage of the (many fewer) Bush voters in the 9th CD. When I reported that on dKos, people answered me by saying that Jan could afford to be that liberal because her district was deep blue. And so it was, but the Bush voters in her district weren't liberals or yellow-dog Democrats. The argument was that she would have won the district anyway; so let's ignore how she got votes.
More on persuasion after the jump.
I might point out that Bean was finally toppled by Joe Walsh, a wildly underfunded wingnut former radio host. (Bean had National Chamber of Commerce support in her losing race.) She won the race to the middle; what she lost was the election.
For decades, the senate delegation from Illinois was Paul Douglas, arguably the most progressive Democrat of his era, and Everett Dirksen, some of that time the Republican leader of the Senate. These guys didn't have many positions in common on the issues of the day, but you fucking-well knew where either of them stood.
The same electorate chose one of them and then the other two or four years later, presidential years, off years. One can argue that this was a different era, but people were not really that different.
So, the DLC hypothesis: "The electorate is spread out along a line from progressive to conservative and the way to win is to take positions which are at the midpoint," does not comport with experience.
On the other hand, the hypothesis that claims to be the alternative: "Each person is always going to vote for one party or the other; the way to win is to turn out the demographic blocks which will vote for your party if they vote," contradicts the many split tickets that we know have been cast. We don't know how a particular voter votes, and -- thus -- we don't know the number of individual split tickets. We do know the net split tickets. We know that especially well in districts where split tickets are enough to determine the outcome.
The alternative to these contrafactual claims is persuasion.
Persuasion is telling your story. Particular candidates tell their stories, but also they -- and the party -- tell the story of what their policies mean.
Do you remember the cute toddler who had been born with a pre-existing condition whose story was told at the Democratic Convention in 2012? That was a story dramatizing the ACA, and was arguably the best use of time at either convention.
And, of course, persuasion is not wasted on our side. People who are more certain of the reasons for voting our way are more likely to come out and vote. Persuasion is not an alternative to turn-out; it is another method of turn-out. Perhaps, it is not the most cost-effective method if you are only measuring our core, but it the turn-out benefits must be added to the benefits with regard to leaners (and the benefits with regard to the guys on the other side who are less likely to vote if we persuade them of one detail the Republicans get wrong).
Another issue is persistance. When we drag somebody to the polls in 2012, he may be more habituated to voting by 2014; he may, on the other hand, more resistant to being dragged in 2014. (We know how this tension worked out in 2010.) If we persuade him, he will stay persuaded or the Republicans will have to work to get him back. Turn-out is a short-term strategy. Persuasion is a long-term strategy. Both strategies are neeed.
It sometimes seems to me that we are surrendering the persuasion battlefield to the right wing. The major exception is the political success story of the 21st century. The right has talk radio, Fox, major efforts in LTE columns, and some pulpits. We talk, if ever about issues, to ourselves.
The excxeption is marriage equality and gay rights in general. That clearly succeeds because it depends on sources apart from regular progressive ones. The gay-rights arguments have their own outlets, their own voices, their own "agenda."