A sort of low-level rumbling on the state of the Democratic Party's soul has been engaged since November 3rd, 2004. And rightfully so. As it turned out, we Democrats discovered once again that beating something with nothing is painfully hard to do, and the country is worse off for the effort (or lack thereof).
Typically, these fratricidal affairs consist of left vs. center, ideology vs. pragmatism, traditional democratic constituencies vs. other traditional democratic constituencies and any other pairing off of two naturally hostile factions that we try to hold in the same tent. The argument ebbs and flows and before long, another election year is upon us, and it's up to the likes of Bob Shrum to try and make sense of it all. At a record of 0 and 8, he's not doing very well, and neither are we for listening.
Continued...
What the Bob Shrums of the Democratic Party typically say is that there is a grocery list of time-honored things that people like: schools, health care, civil rights, and so on that Democrats typically poll well on. Indeed, polls going in to the 2004 election polls showed (except for Rasmussen) that Kerry would win a very small victory, based predominantly on voters' specific concerns. States like Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas seemed to be in play. Ohio could have gone either way, Florida was too close to call, Nevada was too close as well. What ultimately happened of course was much different with those states falling like dominoes quickly, and I retiring to bed shortly after we got word that Minnesota voted rationally.
So what happened? Were voters lying? Probably not; they have no reason to. Voters do care about health care and the rest, and generally the Democratic Party is recognized as the party that handles social policy well, or well-enough. Turn out was incredibly high in 2004, so it's certainly possible that those polled weren't significant enough to account for everyone's opinions...although, the make-up of voters, contrary to the "values-voter" nonsense that was peddled in the weeks after the election was not much different than in years' past. True, many voters (something like 10%, in one count) don't make up their minds until they get in to the voting booth, and at that point the number of times they heard a candidate's name is the most important thing.
But look at those numbers. Bush's Approve/Disapprove numbers are 53/46, when the very last poll taken the day before had them reversed. Earlier that year, only 36% of people approved of Bush's handling the economy, which jumped to 47% on Election Day. Was there a huge job boom no one told us about?
More importantly, could there be some other calculus that people use when deciding whom to vote for? Could this calculus skew not only their decision-making, but their perceptions?
Enter Mike Tomasky. If you've been reading any blogs at all, you know that his cover story in The American Prospect is causing quite a stir among people who worry about such things. His general thesis is this:
There remains a missing ingredient -- the crucial ingredient of politics, the factor that helps unite a party (always a coalition of warring interests), create majorities, and force the sort of paradigm shifts that happened in 1932 and 1980. It’s the factor they need to think about if their goal is not merely to win elections but to govern decisively after winning them.
<snip>
What the Democrats still don’t have is a philosophy, a big idea that unites their proposals and converts them from a hodgepodge of narrow and specific fixes into a vision for society.
Tomasky spends the rest of his article discussing the idea of "The Common Good" as the forward-moving purpose of the Democratic Party. The notion of "civic reconstruction and genuine public morality" as a guiding principle is what Tomasky charges is the notion behind which Democrats governed this country and created the "American Century". This current business of grocery lists of policies and a hodgepodge of competing interest groups is where the wheels fell off the wagon of Democratic dominance.
Here then, is a distillation of Democrats: You believe in these policies because you believe in some sacrifice for the common good. Whatever your specific motivations--the environment, civil rights, health care--there is an overarching public morality that guides you.
All for one and one for all.
Initial reaction to Tomasky's piece was mixed, but generally positive and somewhat excited. This is a great discussion to have within the party that doesn’t involve the terms “sell-out” or “damned hippie”.
This is good stuff, and a great step in the right direction for Democrats, regardless of interest group. Further, this brings to the forefront the principles on which this country was founded. We are a republic. We give up a bit of sovereignty to the whole (or to representatives of the whole) so that the whole is stronger, and then we are enriched by the quality of our public life. Periods of great prosperity in this country have been fueled by this ethos. Periods of unrest, depression, and assorted domestic strife are followed by periods where the Republican worldview is ascendant (shorter Republican worldview: "Mine! Not yours!")
Politically, it allows Democrats to create a unifying concept that not only do most Democrats believe, but most Americans do, as well. This is the basis for a governing majority. A win here and there will take back the house, but as we said after November 2nd, 2004, 2% is not a mandate. We need the support of the country, and a grand theme that directly contradicts the Republicans without reacting to them and buying in to their view of the world is how we give America a choice in what to support.
A recent study by the Center for American Progress supports the idea that the country is moving toward this idea of civic republicanism. A January, 2005 McKinsey study focused on CEOs echoes these sentiments. When CEOs of the Fortune 500 lament that “profits must be balanced against the common good” changes are afoot.
We Democrats tend to lament that the people we ostensibly work for tend not to vote their economic interests. If they did, there wouldn't be a Republican party. Republicans give people something much greater than economics, however: a sense of purpose. To be part of a crowd against something is a very powerful feeling indeed. Democrats might want to take Tomasky's advice and play to people's interests in being a part of something larger than themsleves. Being for something as great as a better United States might be a better message than all the grocery lists combined.
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