Dean and the Democratic Conservatives

[kent_allard_jr]

“We can change the way we talk,” Dean intoned to lusty cheers, “but we need to remain people of deep conviction!”

That's Howard Dean, quoted in John Heilemann's article in New York magazine. I haven't said much about Dean's campaign for DNC, because I really don't know if he's the right guy for the job, but statements like these always appealed to me. The Democratic Party may have to change positions on many issues -- party conservatives are perfectly correct in that respect -- but there's no point in doing so unless we can convince ourselves that these are the correct positions to take. The DLC and their ilk, all too often, seemed to make purely instrumental arguments ("we have to do this if we want to win elections"), and when Democrats took their advice it seemed like crass opportunism or cringing wishy-washiness. Unfortunately, after eight years of Clinton's see-sawing, Democrats are left with two lousy choices: Run as liberals and be denounced as crazy left-wingers, or run as centrists and be called wafflers and flip-floppers. Ultimately we have to review the positions we take, but if we can't convince ourselves that our old positions were the wrong ones we have to stick by them.

Comments

[avram]

Our problems have very little to do with the actual positions we take (which polls usually show are supported by the majority of voters) and a lot to do with how we talk about them, or don't, and the fact that the right somehow gets to define all the terms of the argument.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I don't think we disagree all that much, but two points. First: The best positions, from a political standpoint, aren't always the ones a majority of voters agrees with. As I've said before, the public generally supports gun control and opposes affirmative action, but overall an American candidate will lose more votes than he'll gain by siding with the majority, due to single-issue voting.

Secondly: The importance of different issues depends a lot on the agenda of the moment. Americans trust Democrats more on health care, for example, and Democratic positions on health care are closer to the mainstream. But nobody expects any significant health care initiatives in the foreseeable future; Clinton's health-care fiasco in the early 1990s has ensured this. As a result the Democratic advantage on this issue is politically meaningless. On the other hand, the Democratic position on gay marriage (which is politically unpopular) is more important right now.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Matt Yglesias made a good point on Tapped a couple of days ago:

BUSH'S PSEUDO-LIBERALISM. For my money, the most noteworthy thing about last night's speech was the extent to which it continued a trend we've been watching for five years now -- George W. Bush's near-total abandonment of conservative ideology as an effective rhetorical tool. If you take Bush at his word (which you shouldn't, but that's another story) he believes that the federal government has a responsibility to ensure that all Americans have access to health care, good schools for their children, security in retirement, and protection against poverty. He thinks a responsible energy policy should encourage "conservation, alternative sources . . . cut power plant pollution and improve the health of our citizens."

This, needless to say, is what liberals believe. It's a mistake to caricature conservatives as thinking that people should get sick, die, and spend their years poor, miserable, ignorant, and choked by pollution. But it's not a caricature to say that American conservatism has always been defined by a belief that preventing this stuff isn't the responsibility of the federal government. The states, or individual intiative, or private charity, or technological growth, or anything else under the sun -- anything but the federal government -- are supposed to accomplish these goals. The fact that Bush has abandoned that worldview (and if you think 'twas ever thus, I encourage you to look at Ronald Reagan's speeches and you'll see otherwise) seems to indicate that even as Republicans have become politically dominant, their ideology has become a spent force that their most successful leaders thinks lacks appeal to the public.