This is an update of something that I wrote at MyDD in November. Back then I noted that calls for the Democratic party to move left or right and complaints on why Bush voters "don't get it" are all missing the point on why Democrats don't win at the presidential level.
For over 25 years Democrats have focused on voters' brains with talk of "plans" while Republicans went after the heart with talk of "values" and won -- repeatedly. Except against Bill Clinton, a Democrat who "felt our pain."
I say that there is a way for Democrats to connect with the electorate's heart -- without compromising what makes us Democrats -- and to use it to get to the brain. From there, it's a short trip to electoral victory.
Before I go on, I should say that I believe that the Democrats already have the most popular issues/positions and thus should not move left or right. The key to winning elections is not in choosing less popular positions, but in helping voters understand and trust Democrats to lead them.
Democrats are reasonably good at telling voters how we're going to do something (i.e., everyone knew that John Kerry "had a plan" because he told us so every five minutes). . We're also fairly good at explaining what policy goals led us to create the plan. But we almost never explain to voters why we feel the need to achieve the goal.
The 2004 presidential election's "moral values" hype was just that. (See The Economist story The triumph of the religious right for details on why.) However, I think that behind the hype was something meaningful: a need in many voters to know what's inside a candidate, what drives his or her moral compass.
I hesitated to put "moral" before "compass" because I know that many Democrats (or at least many who I know) try not to mention morals in political discussions. I think that they do this because they don't want to blur the line between Church and State as the opposition seems determined to do. However, as a phrase (and frame), "moral compass" is more accurate for what I'm describing and less baggage-ridden than "moral values."
This need to "know what's inside" is real and deep and lets such compass-seekers know that even if the candidate's campaign promises are not kept, the replacement promises will come from the same insides driven by the same moral compass. These seekers often already have a jaded view of politicians ("they all lie and break their promises"). When Democratic candidates explain what they'll do once elected, they are ignored by the seekers because the candidates haven't explained why they'll do it. Because the "why" isn't intuitively obvious to the seekers, they only hear an unprincipled politician droning on. (This is one of the reasons why John Kerry's incessant "I have a plan" line was so ineffective in reaching these folks.)
Republican politicians talk about their morals as rationales for their actions. They repeatedly announce that their why is grounded in their religion. In the absence of the Democrats announcing their values, the GOP has told the compass-seekers that the Democrats have no values (i.e., are amoral) or, worse still, have the opposite values as Republicans (i.e., are immoral). This lie needs to be put down. Democrats do indeed have values. (Interestingly, many of them can be traced to the same Judeo-Christian/western tradition that Republicans try to claim as their own.)
What's missing from the Democratic candidates is a willingness to discuss "what's inside." Our candidates must talk about what's deep in their hearts, because that is what drives them to create solutions for the things that they think are wrong and to support the things that they see as right. "Values" is all about "right and wrong."
For those so inclined, this discussion can even be done without invoking values, morals, religion, or God (i.e., candidates don't have to "get religion" to show the seekers that their insides are "good," but doing so won't hurt in that crowd).
Our candidates need to emphasize that there is something substantial and fundamental "inside" with talk of their "core values," "core beliefs," or "core principles." Seekers need to see that our candidates are not hollow. (That they don't already see that is evident on how effective charges of "serial exaggerator," "flip-flopper," and "blowing in the wind" are against our candidates.)
Democratic policies are driven by our Democratic principles; without our principles we are nothing. Plans are crafted to further those principle-driven policies. Once the seekers see the principles inside our candidates, they'll be able to understand how the candidates arrive at the policy stances that they take. Once they understand that, they might be willing to listen to our plans to achieve those policy ends. Then we have a fighting chance.
