Pundit World is Wrong
The world of pundits often acts as if it is a self-evident fact that being a “moderate” makes a candidate for President more electable. In actual fact, American’s modern political history offers no evidence whatsoever that this is true.
The fact is that at the time of their election, every successful Democratic candidate since John F. Kennedy was perceived to be the candidate of hope and change – not the candidate of incrementalism or a return to a previous status quo.
John F. Kennedy’s campaign slogans in 1960 were “A Time for Greatness” and “Leadership for the Sixties.” His entire campaign was about passing the torch to a new generation of leadership – and his Presidency was about creating a New Frontier. He contrasted his leadership style to the incremental, moderate Eisenhower Presidency. And his opponent was Eisenhower’s Vice-President, Richard Nixon.
After Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Lyndon Johnson picked up the bold Kennedy program and presented a turbo-charged version when he ran against Barry Goldwater. Goldwater himself was a radical of sorts. He presented a program that attacked the New Deal consensus that was the agreed political framework of the previous 25 years.
Johnson sought to make his opponent look radical and dangerous – especially with respect to foreign and military policy. But he did not try to make himself look “moderate.” He proposed to continue Kennedy’s bold agenda – rolling out his proposals for a “Great Society” and War on Poverty. And when he won, at least on the domestic front, America experienced the most progressive period since FDR – passing Medicare, Medicaid, Civil Rights bills, a War on Poverty and many other “Great Society” initiatives.
Jimmy Carter was the hope and change candidate in 1972 who pledged to take American into a new era of cleaner, corruption-free politics after the Watergate scandal. His slogan was: “Jimmy Carter – A Leader for Change.”
Bill Clinton’s slogan – and message -- in 1992 was: “Bill Clinton – For People, For a Change”, and his campaign was famously focused on “The Economy, Stupid.” His reelection campaign in 1996 focused not only on his economic success, but on change and the future -- creating a “Bridge to the 21st Century.”
Of course, Barack Obama’s slogan in 2008 actually was “Hope and Change”-- together with “Change We Can Believe In” and “Yes We Can.” And let’s be clear, Barack Obama himself embodied change. Many pundits believed firmly that an African American with a name like Barack Hussein Obama could not possibly win the Presidency – the same way they believe today that America will not elect a woman to be President, even though in 2018 female candidates were more likely to defeat male candidates than the other way around.
Obama’s successful re-election bid was not focused on maintaining the status quo. Instead the campaign successfully presented Romney as a creature of the Wall Street establishment that fought to maintain the status quo and had fought Obama’s change agenda from the first day of his Presidency. It featured the campaign slogan: “Forward.”
Moderate Incrementalism Is a Loser
And of course recently we saw precisely how well a moderate, incrementalist approach worked in 2016. Hillary Clinton positioned herself in the primary as the candidate of incrementalism and moderation in contrast to Bernie Sander’s demand for a political revolution. She carried that mantle into the General Election and allowed Donald Trump to outflank her as the candidate of change.
To many voters, Hillary Clinton appeared as the embodiment of a status quo that was not working for them. She allowed herself to be positioned as the candidate of Wall Street and the global elites. Trump convinced many voters that he was the voice of ordinary working people who were being left behind.
As a result, 3.6% of the electorate who had voted for Obama in 2012 voted for Trump in 2016. Worse, 4.3% of the electorate who had voted for Obama in 2012, either didn’t vote or voted for a third party – and Trump won.
Voters Are Persuaded and Motivated by How A Candidate Makes Them Feel
After working in politics for 50 years the most important thing I have learned is that voters don’t make decisions mainly based upon candidate policy positions, or their record, or their accomplishments. They don’t tote up positive and negative attributes on a spreadsheet. They commit themselves to candidates mainly because of how the candidate makes them feel.
Those policy positions, record, and labels color how voters feel about them. But history shows that the most important element a winning candidate for President needs is the ability to inspire – to make voters feel part of something bigger than themselves and that they themselves can play a significant role in achieving that greater goal.
In fact, it turns out that the most important factor in determining whether a voter makes a commitment to a candidate is the same factor that determines whether someone falls in love: does the candidate make a voter feel good about themselves? Trump made many of those ordinary voters feel good about themselves for a change, even though he often did it by making them feel superior to other races, or to “foreigners” or immigrants.
Combating that kind of demagoguery does not require incrementalism, or a “moderate” status quo agenda. It requires a bold agenda for change that puts the needs and goals of ordinary voters at the center of the change agenda. It requires that a candidate inspire them. That is necessary both to persuade some slice of Trump voters to support the Democrat – and it is certainly necessary to inspire the massive turnout needed to bring all of the voters who sat it out or voted for a third party in 2016.
In his recent New York Times op ed, Adam Jentleson, former Chief of Staff to Senate Leader Harry Reid, argued that while it is hard to know precisely which Democratic candidate has the best odds of beating Trump, “all we really know is that the last two Democratic presidents to win were dynamic performers on the stump who inspired people with optimism and were able to assemble a broad coalition.”
The fact of the matter is that incrementalism and moderation are not the solution to the electability issue for Democrats. They are the enemies of the inspiration and the optimism Democrats need to win in 2016.
Robert Creamer, a partner at Democracy Partners, has been a political organizer and strategist for five decades and was a consultant in the last three Democratic presidential campaigns. He is the author of "Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win." Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer