So I've been reading back copies of Charles Peters' old "Tilting at Windmills" column for Washington Monthly. Peters was the intellectual founder-of-sorts of the modern neoliberal movement and, while his political analysis runs a little milqueotoasty at times, his takes on his favourite topics -- corporate malfeasance, political corruption and the problems of Washington bureaucracy in establishing sufficient industrial regulation -- are still interesting (and outrageous). Here was his
advice to Democrats in the wake of the 2002 midterm election "disaster":
Don't let the Republicans seize the middle. Expose the phoniness of Wall Street reform a la Harvey Pitt, of prescription drug benefits that don't give enough help to enough people, and of leave-no-child-behind education programs that do not provide the money to really improve poor schools. When the Republicans actually have good ideas, as in the case of seeking higher standards and better teachers, you can warmly embrace them, confident in the, sure and certain knowledge that they will be few and far between. The GOP is far too firmly rooted in its right wing.
Lead the base; don't follow its lowest common denominator. The Democratic base consists of women, minorities, and unions, especially those of public employees and teachers, who are the party's major contributors. It is essential that we lead our base instead of selling out to its worst side, as the Republicans have too often done with their judicial and regulatory appointments.
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Don't talk down. Don't treat people who oppose liberal policies such as gun control and abortion as cretins. Often they are workers and farmers who would be our natural political allies on economic issues. Treating them with disdain doesn't win elections. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter understood this, and they are the only Democrats to win the presidency in the last 34 years.
Have faith in the common sense of the people and explain. Too often Democrats assume the public can't or won't understand. For example, the real position of most Democrats on Iraq was that there was no need to rush to decision in October because there was no evidence of imminent danger and that Bush's effort to keep the issue on the front burner in September and October was designed to keep economic issues that would favor the Democrats off the front pages. Why didn't they explain themselves? Doing so would have enabled them to expose Bush's cynical manipulation and at the same time put the spotlight on his administration's economic and regulatory failures.
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On the danger of nuclear weapons, those lying around the former Soviet Union remain a far greater danger than those supposedly being developed by Iraq and North Korea. And so are the nuclear weapons held by Pakistan, where an unstable government is threatened by a rising tide of anti-Americanism.
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On health care, the Democrats need to explain that they have been the party that from Truman to Johnson to Bill and Hillary Clinton has tried to expand the protection of the American people against the expense of medical care, The greatest challenge for the party is to learn from the failure of the Clinton plan and develop a health program for all that the American people can and will support, for this is our greatest need.
On regulation, the Democrats must explain that they have been the protectors of the environment, economic fairplay, and public health and safety, and that the Republican deregulators have usually been the enemy.
Where they don't know enough to explain, they need to learn. Democrats must accept their responsibility to master military issues. We need new Gary Harts and Sam Nunns. And that means a lot of Democrats have to learn a lot more than they know now so that they can discuss equipment and manpower needs with authority. This is not only relevant to national preparedness but to making sure that we do not waste money that could be spent on health and education to develop weapons that we don't truly need.
Finally Democrats must always remember that we are the party not of the privileged but of the people, that we have a proud history of protecting the powerless from the powerful, of caring about what happens to average everyday Americans and of appealing to the generosity and idealism in the human spirit. If we remain true to ourselves, victory at the polls will come.
Some of this is a little out of date obviously, and predated the launching of the Iraq War (which Peters opposed) and all the disasters following, not to mention the skanky election campaign and the Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" -- all of which make Peters' lack of outrage a little inappropriate for the current political moment. Also, "the base" should be updated to include the online community, both groups of anynomous but (as it seems to me) largely autonomous liberal political junkies, and the blog punditry -- we're a donor base now too with a loose consensus of ideas (the blogs definitely influenced the Edwards vp pick afterall). And, of course, Peters is a self-identified neolib -- which, as he defines it, isn't quite the same as a New Democrat but still runs to the conservative side of the party.
Still, I really liked this column. I especially agree with his argument that the Democrats chronically don't do a good job of explaining themselves and that have an obligation to explain and an obligation to know a lot of stuff and to use that knowledge to debate their case -- not just leave it to American Prospect and Washington Monthly wonks. The failure to explain beyond the soundbite level was a massive failure of both the Gore and Kerry campaigns (Kerry was the less egregious offender; he was at his best when he was at his most wonkish -- in the debates when he talked about nuclear proliferation and in his September 20 speech on Iraq at New York University. He was at his worst when he was sticking to slogans and soundbites and doing his damnest not to say anything that might get him into trouble on Iraq, like at that appalling vacuous rally after Bush's convention speech and to a lesser extent at his own whitewashed convention in which the whole party was guilty). It was also painfully true of the Senate and House leaderships during the tax cut debates and of the party apparatus during the midterms and of our partisans on TV.
People and pundits often say the Dem leadership is too wonky and needs to get one big overarching narrative theme and a charismatic leader to advance it and screw the details. I think that's wrong. Narrative is important, but it's not enough -- it has to be filled in. Charisma only won Clinton 43% of the vote in 1992 running against an opponent with an approval rating below 40% and, at one point, the endorsement of a massively popular third-party candidate. In 1996, Clinton won essentially the same percentage of the vote as did Gore and Kerry in their elections, and with lower turnout than either of them. And Clinton was, in the end, also a collassal wonk. Some of his best political performances, like his 1996 nomination acceptance speech, were absolute wonk-fests. He was a politician with a lot to say and he didn't mind wading around in the policy muck.
Further, the Dems I find most exciting like Eliot Spitzer and my awesome congressman in absentea Rush Holt are the ones who know a lot of shit and don't mind sharing it. Spitzer's TNR columns are brilliant; he's a smart dude and when it comes to his hobbyhorse -- the meaning and importance of free and fair markets and how to achieve them through policy and regulation -- he's a veritible expert, not to mention an idealist and an enthusiast. He's also the fastest-rising Democrat out there except maybe for Obama, who is also a smart cookie. I don't believe people hate politicians who know too much or politicians who want to impart knowledge. But as Paul Krugman once put it, when Dems try to finesse ideas rather than explain why they're important:
we have ended up with the best worst of all worlds. On one side, the public feels, correctly, that politicians... who use half-truths to push for half-responsible policies [by this Krugman meant too much spending, not enough debt repayment] are talking down to them. On the other side the public feels, quite wrongly, that politicians... who tell them that they can have their cake and eat it too, are men of the people.
Bush isn't a man of the people. But he's got tax cuts and cultural pandering on his side. And for six years, we haven't been able to explain why he's such a disaster. And with a few exeptions here and there and some performances from Pelosi during the campaign and from Reid recently, that's largely because we -- by which I mean the leading Democratic spokespeople -- really haven't tried, choosing instead to publish detailed policy booklets but on the campaign trail stick to being cute about lockboxes and bands of brothers and who's the "real deal". To make the case against Bush, "W stands for wrong" just won't cut it. Yes, we need to fight and filibuster and frame. But we also need to act like the party with the facts on our side and do a better job of laying them out.